Gonorrhea

Three small children who attended a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., day-care center owned by a man arrested on pornography charges have been found to have gonorrhea. Police announced that throat cultures turned up the disease, which is usually transmitted through sexual contact. The youngsters, ages 2, 3 and 4, attended the Rainbow Learning Center and were among 20 identified from thousands of nude photographs found at the home of the center's owner, John W. Shaver, police said.

The number of gonorrhea cases in Orange County dropped significantly last year, probably in part because of the fear of AIDS, according to county health officials. "And it's not just here. It's been noted in a number of other jurisdictions," said L. Rex Ehling, the county's public health officer. "People are having fewer sexual partners and are using safer practices," such as using condoms, Ehling said.

The rate of gonorrhea in the United States is at an all-time low, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday, but the rates for chlamydia and syphilis continue to rise.  The three sexually transmitted diseases, orSTDs, together account for about 1.5 million cases annually, less than 10% of the country's estimated 19 million cases. But they are the only ones that must be reported to CDC by doctors because they have such potentially serious consequences. Herpes and human papillomavirus account for the bulk of the remaining STD infections.

Advocates for and against same-sex marriage will make legal arguments to the Supreme Court this week about whether laws such as the federal  Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8 run afoul of the Constitution.  Meanwhile, in medical literature, doctors, psychologists, sociologists and other researchers have been making the case that allowing gays and lesbians to marry results in tangible health benefits for the couples involved, their...

Teens are deluged with images about sex. On TV alone, it is estimated that the average teen sees 14,000 sexual messages each year, less than 1% of which deal with sexual responsibility or consequences, according to a definitive study by Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, thousands of teens face the very real consequences of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) every day. By the 12th grade, nearly two-thirds of U.S.

We recently learned that the inventor of Life Savers candies was inspired, in the early 20th century, to make his candy after witnessing a pharmacist make pills with an old-fashioned pill machine. All very fine and creative. But who, we'd like to know, invented pills? Someone way, way back when, says George Griffenhagen, a retired pharmacist with a penchant for history who resides in Vienna, Va. (Griffenhagen has made quite a study of the pill question. He's even written about pill history.

In an attempt to gather evidence that Corona del Mar High School Coach Mark Aubrey Schuster was molesting his stepdaughter, police helped her fabricate a story about having gonorrhea and then taped the conversation between the two, according to court documents filed Monday.

Syphilis cases in California jumped 18% from 2010 to 2011, according to new data released by the state Department of Public Health. The data also show a 5% rise in chlamydia cases and 1.5% increase in gonorrhea cases. Public health officials said they were concerned about the rise of all three sexually transmitted diseases because they can lead to even more serious health problems, like infertility and an increased risk of HIV. "The longer people have these infections without being treated the more likely it is they are going to develop a complication that will have both health and financial costs," said Heidi Bauer, chief of the Sexually Transmitted Disease Control Branch for the state public health agency.

Moving to combat rising rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia among young black women in South Los Angeles, county officials launched a new education and testing campaign Monday with some unlikely partners: churches. Pastors and "first ladies" from churches throughout the region are joining an effort to raise awareness of the sexually transmitted diseases and publicize a home testing program. "Nobody wants to talk about it," said Debra Williams, whose husband is the pastor at McCoy Memorial Baptist Church.

U.S. syphilis rates reached an all-time low in 1999, suggesting that it may be possible to virtually eliminate the disease from the American scene, but gonorrhea rates reversed a two-decade trend by rising 9%, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. The syphilis decline was the result of natural cycles of the disease and an aggressive federal program of testing and education.