Infections

Porn actresses paraded in stiletto heels, wearing itsy-bitsy skirts and bikini tops that overflowed. Guys eagerly snapped pictures and collected autographs. As Erotica LA got underway Friday at the Los Angeles Convention Center, it was business as usual.

Rates of the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia are climbing in the U.S., and rates of syphilis -- once on the verge of elimination -- rose for the seventh consecutive year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in its annual report on STDs. Gonorrhea rates did not increase, but they ceased falling a few years ago, frustrating goals set by public health leaders. Chlamydia infections in the United States now top 1.

As prominent AIDS advocates called Thursday for Los Angeles County officials to require condoms on porn sets or shut down production, more questions arose about why the Public Health Department has not investigated 18 HIV cases reported in the last five years by the clinic that serves the adult film industry. "L.A.

California would have one of the most sweeping laws in the nation for tracking "superbugs" in hospitals and other settings under legislation that state Sen. Elaine Alquist (D-Santa Clara) plans to introduce this month. This time, the hospital lobbyists who persuaded Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a similar bill in 2004 will be up against a highly visible advocate.

As the public's alarm mounts over methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, and other antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a few hospitals in California and across the country are finding that aggressive action to detect and avert infections pays off.

In the 1890s, a New York surgeon named William Coley tested a radical cancer treatment. He took a hypodermic needle teeming with bacteria and plunged it into the flesh of patients. After suffering through weeks of chills and fevers, many showed significant regression of their tumors, but even Coley himself could not explain the phenomenon. His experiments were sparked by the observation that certain cancer patients improved after contracting infections.

When California officials announced this month that they would begin tracking virulent "superbug" infections in gyms, schools and other community settings, they billed it as a major advance in public health. But the plan would capture just a fraction of drug-resistant infections, leaving the vast majority unreported to the state and unknown to the public, according to experts and consumer advocates.

On Aug. 15, 2006, Alicia Cole entered Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center for a routine surgery -- removing noncancerous growths from her uterus. Several days after the procedure, it was clear something was wrong. The actress' abdominal area was red and swollen. She had a temperature of 103 degrees. At one point, the inflamed incision site oozed a brown fluid. A hospital record dated Aug. 21, 2006, said Cole had a postoperative wound infection, according to a state report.

A Downey High School wrestler has died after being hospitalized for 20 days with pneumonia and other complications of a staph infection. Noah Armendariz, 17, died Sunday at Children's Hospital of Orange County, said his mother, Cynthia Magana. The infection was caused by methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, or MSSA, Magana said. Another form of S.

Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new HIV infections in the United States by 40% every year for more than a decade, a finding that indicates the U.S. epidemic is much worse than thought, researchers said Saturday. Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new infections each year, not the 40,000 figure that has been gospel for so long.