Every now and again, the media likes to run with a time-honored story: GONORRHEA OMG YOU’RE ALL GOING TO DIE. The latest round of gonorrhea fear-mongering started with a strain of the STI called HO41. First discovered in a female sex worker in Japan, HO41 was thought to be in North America. Everyone freaked out. But then it was proven that it really wasn’t, so everyone calm down.
Like regular gonorrhea, HO41 can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, which can lead to infertility, and increases the chances of someone infected of contracting HIV/AIDS. If you don’t realize you have gonorrhea or don’t cure it, one of the above will likely happen to you. This is a well-documented and scientifically proven pathology of the bacteria.
Now, some random doctor named Alan Christianson decided to put his own spin on the whole thing: “This might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly,” said Christianson, a “naturopathic” doctor based in Arizona. FYI, naturopathic doctors believe in alternative medicine, focusing on a belief in vitalism, an energy contained in bodily processes that naturopathic doctors believe cures several conditions. I’m not hating on naturopathy, but almost every article that quoted Christianson failed to elaborate on his holistic approaches. “Getting gonorrhea from this strain might put someone into septic shock and death in a matter of days,” Christianson continued. “This is very dangerous.”
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