Gay.com gets gonorrhea stat wrong

Dear friends:

Why bother giving readers some truthful STD numbers about declines when a gay reporter has scaremongering on his agenda?

That was the question on my mind as I read the latest b.s. from Gay.com's reporter Randy Dotinga regarding gay men and STDs. As you can see in the excerpt below, Dotinga falsely claims there are about 400,000 new gonorrhea cases each year across the nation.

If Dotinga had bothered to check the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report for January 4, 2002, he would have discovered the following year-end gonorrhea statistics. The cumulative caseload for 2000 was 357,570, and for 2001 there were 326,346 gonorrhea cases.

Quite a bit less than the 400,000 claimed by Gay.com. It also appears as though gonorrhea declined over those two years, but no need to inform Gay.com readers of this fact. (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5052md.htm)

What does the most current CDC MMWR show in terms of gonorrhea cases so far this year, versus cases at this point in time last year? There have been 108,102 cases in 2002, while in May 2001 America recorded 123,224 cases. Seems to me like that is a decreasing trend. (Source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5119md.htm)

Is it asking too much of Gay.com and its writers to report accurate STD statistics from the CDC? Should Gay.com tell people of downward trends in gonorrhea? I think so, but what do you have to say about this?

Michael Petrelis


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http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2002/05/20/3

May 20, 2002

Coupons entice men to get STD tests
by Randy Dotinga
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network

Health officials in San Francisco plan to set up shop once again at the "gayest intersection in the world" after a month-long promotion convinced 150 gay men to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

April's "Spring Cleaning" project was unusual because it attracted men by offering them discount coupons from local merchants if they agreed to be tested.

[snip]

Gonorrhea, also known as "the clap," infects about 400,000 Americans a year, making it more common than syphilis and HIV combined. Gonorrhea is not as serious as HIV or syphilis, and usually just one or two doses of antibiotics will cure it.

[snip]