Bob, here's an article I read on genital herpes:
5:01 PM (ET) 10/15
Genital Herpes Rates Jump
NEW YORK (AP) -- Despite the emphasis on safe sex to prevent AIDS, genital herpes has increased fivefold since the late 1970s among white teen-agers and doubled among whites in their 20s.
In all, about one in five Americans over age 12 has the sexually transmitted infection, and most of them don't know it, the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention reported.
Dr. Michael St. Louis, who wrote the report with colleagues at the CDC, said it was surprising that herpes went up during the 1980s despite publicity about AIDS. Other sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, declined.
He said other studies have shown that young people increased their rates of unprotected sex, premarital sex and multiple sex partners. And condoms appear to be less effective in blocking herpes than other diseases because the virus can be transmitted from parts of the body not covered by a condom.
Gray Davis, president of the Herpes Advice Center in Durham, N.C., said the study shows many people ignored safe-sex warnings about AIDS in the 1980s.
"What these numbers are telling us is that the young, sexually active white population didn't consider themselves at risk for HIV," she said. "So the HIV message, while it was very effective in the gay population, where it was targeted to, didn't reach the rest of the population."
One reason for concern is that herpes sores make a person more vulnerable to infection with the AIDS virus, the researchers said in the study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Experts said it is time to get tougher on herpes. They said new steps could include screening for it in patients at clinics for sexually transmitted diseases and in pregnant women, whose newborns could die if infected.
"We're screening for HIV, we're screening for hepatitis B, we aren't screening for genital herpes," said Dr. Lawrence Corey of the University of Washington.
Genital herpes is caused by the herpes simplex type 2 virus, and much less often by the type 1 virus. The study used blood samples from about 24,000 people to reveal the prevalence of type 2 infection.
The data were gathered between 1988 and 1994 and compared with a similar study done from 1976 to 1980.
The results suggest that 45 million Americans are infected, including 18 percent of whites and 46 percent of blacks.
Among whites ages 12 to 19, the infection rate jumped from slightly less than 1 percent to 4.5 percent.
The rate among whites in their 20s went from 7.7 percent to 14.7 percent. Among older whites and all blacks, the increases in each age group were too small to be considered significant.
Genital herpes causes occasional outbreaks of sores or itching in the genital areas and around the buttocks or thighs. The sores can look like ulcers or paper cuts, and they can be painful. No cure is known.
People can transmit the virus to a sex partner even when they don't have symptoms. Only 9 percent of infected people in the study even knew they had the virus.
News or information from AP may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authorization of AP. Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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