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Bill Gates wants you to invent the condom of the future

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:20:00 +0000

Sex (as long as it is consensual) pretty much always feels good. Because, you know, it is sex.

But global public health advocates understand that due to cultural stigma, social pressure and generic "it just doesn't feel the same" whining, people still aren't using condoms at the rate that they could be given how widely available they have become.

So with that in mind, the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, put out a call for a better designed, more pleasure-inducing condom. The challenge is to make an experience-enhancing condom that will make men and women go weak in their desire to have protected sex! For the good of humankind!

The problem (emphasis mine):

CDC releases new STD report, ruins Valentine’s Day for everyone

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:50:00 +0000

According to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young people ages 15 - 24 account for half of the 19.7 million sexually transmitted infections that occur annually. The CDC reported data on eight sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, chlamydia, trichomoniasis, herpes and HPV.

So, you know, happy Valentine's Day or whatever.

Lack of insurance and an inability to access sexual health services (I'm looking at you here, Texas) were major factors in the disproportionate representation of young people in the findings, said Catherine Satterwhite, an author of one of the reports and a CDC epidemiologist. Young women stand a greater risk of infection than men, she added.

“We’ve seen a disproportionate burden for quite a while,” Satterwhite said in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. “Young women in particular are at greater risk."

Antiabortion activists block sexual health funding for at-risk teens

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:16:00 +0000

Last year, a pair of researchers at North Dakota State University won a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families to start a sexual health program aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in at-risk teens.

But as Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones reports, the school had contracted Planned Parenthood to provide the services, and antiabortion activists in the state started complaining about NDSU doing business with the nationwide women's health -- and in states other than North Dakota, abortion services -- provider.

"When I see something that says this is Planned Parenthood — they’re not even a part of the state of North Dakota. They don't serve anyone in North Dakota, and they shouldn't be a part of North Dakota. They're not a part of how we do business in this state," said Rep. Bette Grande on a local radio show denouncing Planned Parenthood and NDSU. "It is an overt abortion industry that we don't want to be a part of," she added.

Drug-resistant gonorrhea has come to North America

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:32:00 +0000

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 700,000 Americans get gonorrhea every year. And while that might sound like cause for concern, the common STI is relatively easy to treat with a course of antibiotics.

That's why a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has public health officials worried. A class of antibiotics known as cephalosporins appears to be weakening against gonorrhea infections worldwide and, according to the report, the drug-resistant strain has now reached North America.

Head researcher Vanessa Allen, of Public Health Ontario, examined people who were treated for gonorrhea with cefixime (a cephalosporin) at a clinic in Toronto. Of the 133 patients who received treatment, 6.77 percent failed to respond to medication -- meaning one in 15 patients had contracted the drug-resistant super strain. And a recent piece in the New Yorker reports that some public-health officials believe the superbug will be widespread in as little as five years.