Venereal Diseases

Condom makers have found business can be very good even if the television networks refuse to sell them advertising time. Retail sales of condoms rose by nearly a third to about $200 million in 1987, industry sources estimate. Sales had been rising at a single-digit rate in each of the previous five years. The sales increase occurred although industry insiders estimate that only about $5 million was spent last year advertising condoms in all media.

Jennifer had been expecting the news from her doctor, but she couldn't help feeling embarrassed. The 26-year-old data manager had been dating John when she learned he was infected with human papilloma virus or HPV, a highly contagious virus that causes venereal warts in both men and women. Soon after meeting him, Jennifer's Pap test was positive and a biopsy confirmed that her cervix was showing precancerous changes, both indications that she too had the virus.

The school board's tiny meeting room was filled beyond capacity, as protesters outside carried signs and Bibles and sang hymns. The crowd at the Capistrano Valley Unified School District meeting was ready for another round in a battle. On one side were administrators who proposed that touchy subjects taught in health classes--including contraception, venereal diseases and drugs--be integrated with conventional subjects such as English and social studies.

In an unexpected reversal of a historical trend, the number of reported syphilis cases in the United States is increasing dramatically, nearly doubling in Los Angeles County, Florida and New York City in early 1987, compared to the first quarter of last year. The increase appears to be primarily among heterosexuals, often involving black and Latino female prostitutes and intravenous drug users, according to public health officials across the country.

The nation's largest pediatricians group is in the final stages of revising its policy on circumcision, apparently signaling a change in attitude in which the procedure may re-emerge as a front-line childhood health practice. The expected policy change on the procedure--whose medical appropriateness has been officially questioned for 16 years--has been prompted most significantly by a growing body of evidence focusing on urinary tract infections in boys.

Even in the sexually permissive '70s, the afflicted often kept quiet. Having genital herpes, after all, was akin to being a social leper. Then along came HIV, which can lead to AIDS, making herpes pale in comparison and pushing it out of our collective consciousness. But the herpes epidemic, far from being over, is getting worse. Today, roughly one in five Americans over age 12--or about 45 million people--is thought to have genital herpes, although most are unaware they have it.

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.

The worst outbreak of syphilis in Los Angeles County in 40 years has been exacerbated by a series of local and federal economy measures and policy decisions, according to officials outside as well as inside the county venereal disease control system.

Health workers were the first to see it coming. They sensed it on the street corners where prostitutes loitered. Behavior was changing. Prostitutes were no longer bothering with motels. They were out on the curb hailing tricks, working hastily out of cars. People coming into the sexually transmitted disease clinics could not remember their partners. More and more seemed to be out of work or using drugs.