Drug-Resistant Super-Gonorrhea Laughs in the Face of Antibiotics

You know how gonorrhea has always been, like, the chillest STI ever? All, “Hey, man! It’s me, gonorrhea! Listen, I’m going to be hanging around your junk for a few weeks, but I’ll keep it quiet—no loud parties!—and then when things start to get weird, just pop some antibiots and I’m out, brah!” Gonorrhea knows when to leave. It’s like the Don Pratt of largely asymptomatic genital diseases! Now, obviously any kind of STI (with the potential for anal itching!) is no treat, but provided you have health insurance and keep a vigilant eye on your downtown situation, gonorrhea is of the least worst.

Buuuuuuut not anymore. Once again, there are rumblings of a more sinister, aggressive strain of gonorrhea that’s taking back the night and telling antibiotics (and you) to fuck off. Not cool, bro. Not cool. (Meanwhile, chlamydia’s all…)

Lab studies show that cephalsporins, the current class of antibiotics used to treat gonorrhea, are becoming less effective at treating the disease. If this trend continues, cephalosporin-resistant gonorrhea could emerge in the U.S., like it has in Japan, France, and Spain. To help delay the emergence of this new super bug, the CDC made changes to guidelines for gonorrhea treatment. An injectable cephalosporin called ceftriaxone combined with an oral antibiotic is now the preferred treatment.

Gonorrhea is the second most commonly reported infectious disease in the United States. In 2011, more than 300,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported.

“The continued threat of multidrug-resistant gonorrhea makes protecting against [gonorrhea] more important than before,” said Dr. Lindsey Satterwhite, an epidemiologist in the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention.

All jokes aside, shit like this is going to get worse if we keep allowing superstitious, medieval trolls to dictate our health policies. We should not still be “debating” the ethics of birth control, or comprehensive sex education, or condoms in schools, or universal fucking healthcare. There should be condoms fucking everywhere. When I walk past a local high school, I want to feel anxious about my air supply because I am trapped beneath a cascading avalanche of condoms. Religious extremism in America is everyone’s problem, and while Rick Santorum might be super-jazzed about his kids’ crotches rotting away from incurable gonorrhea, I’d prefer if he left my family out of it. In conclusion: