Houston health officials are warning residents of a syphilis outbreak that is responsible for a 128% increase in cases among women.
Texas. We expect better of you.
Why? Isn’t this easily treatable and not an issue anymore?
Nope. Plus with the current penicillin shortage we’re falling back on doxycycline to try to eradicate it. That means pills daily for a week or more rather than just some bi-buttock bicillin injections
It’s easily treatable IF it gets diagnosed. Since the typical symptoms are painless chancres on the genitals which resolve in a few months (while the spirochetes continue to burrow deeper and deeper into the body), a LOT of folks just ignore those minimal symptoms, if they notice them at all. And if the disease advances to tertiary syphilis and it can be a real bugger to try to cure.
Waitaminute. People IGNORE freaking chancres on their genitals???
Plot twist: I’ve never had chancres on my genitals. Never.
What’s most alarming is the nine-fold increase in congenital syphilis cases in Harris County (151 reported in 2021, the latest year for which data was available). In addition to having a high mortality rate, congenital syphilis can result in a host of medical problems including physical deformities.
Texas is not the only state seeing marked increases in syphilis diagnoses. It’s part of a national trend.
I deserve some credit for not linking to The Four Skins’ hit song, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Syphilis”.
Shout out to Harris County. We thinking one party responsible?
Do you know how many folks can’t even see their genitals? And how many folks close their eyes when handling someone else’s genitals?
Three?
Their GENITALS…….
“Houston, We have a Problem”
Texas is too close to me for my comfort.
Eeek!
I wonder if unchecked immigration might be a factor in this. Are they screening immigrants for std’s?
Highly unlikely they’re the source. Screening for syphilis ended decades ago in the US as a routine thing for the population as a whole, and was reserved for high risk individuals because the syphilis rates were so low and you could screen half a million low risk people without uncovering a single case.
Increased rates seem to be associated with increased rate of men having sex with men, along with increased methamphetamine use.
Too much partying, maybe.
Harris County has been reliably Democratic for quite awhile, but to my knowledge neither major party has a pro-syphilis plank in its platform. 
I’d guess the meth is the big factor. (ex-speed freak talking)
Our local community center* will be holding a Health Fair in a couple of weeks. STD education, prevention and screening are a big part of the event due to the horrible rise of syphilis out this way.
At least 50% of the population cannot see their entire genitalia without using a mirror. Ask your girlfriend about this if you doubt my word.
*small rural central AZ town, 5 thousand homes in 10 miles.
Ooooohhhhh, yeah, they sure do. One reason is because they think it will go away - and it does, although the consequences are quite dire. As for vaginal chancres, not only do women not see them, they generally can’t feel them either because syphilitic chancres are usually painless.
I agreed with @Jackmannii that the incidence of congenital syphilis (151 cases!) is the most frightening thing of all. Among other things, it means that high-risk pregnant women are not seeking prenatal care, and now they’re going to have to raise a chronically ill, disabled child.
For those of you younger Dopers, you may have heard about people back in the day having to get blood tests before they got married. That was for syphilis, and started back in the day when its treatment involved 18 months of periodic injections of fun things like arsenic and bismuch, and mercury ointment rubbed onto the skin. (THIS is actually where the word “chemotherapy” came from.) I remember when they were discontinued in Iowa in the early 1980s, and one reason was because they’d detected something 1 or 2 cases a year, on average. A few years later, some places proposed prenatal AIDS testing but I don’t know of any place that actually passed that rule, and I do know that at one time, Hawaii required that women have proof of immunity to rubella if they were under a certain age. (I once worked with a woman from there, and that’s where she got married, and they ended up taking blood from her FOOT because they couldn’t find a vein in her arm!)
p.s. I dispensed several of those 4.8 million unit penicillin syringes, designed for syphilis treatment, when I was practicing. 2ml of that thick substance in each butt cheek, administered through IIRC a 16 gauge needle.
ETA: Maybe it was 2.4 million. Anyway, it was a big whonking dose, designed for extended release so a repeat dose was not necessary.
Here’s a PDF with the complete protocols.
Are we thinking about the same Texas?
“Don’t mess with Texas” takes on a whole new meaning.
I know it’s not the main topic of the thread, but why “Danger, Will Robinson”? Unless the show was a lot weirder than I remember.