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CDC Urges Annual STD Testing
Tuesday,
14 May 2002
http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=19881
ATLANTA
-- In a noteworthy first, federal health officials are now
recommending that sexually active gay and bisexual men get
tested annually for HIV and other sexually transmitted
diseases.
New
testing guidelines released by the Centers Disease Control and
Prevention urge doctors to make "frank inquiries about
their patients' sexual histories and other potential risk
factors." The new guidelines, which are not mandatory,
apply to all "sexually active men who have sex with
men."
This
in itself is a departure from past CDC guidelines, which
advised testing only based on certain high-risk sexual
activity.
The
CDC issued the guidelines in response to rising rates of HIV
infection and a growing syphilis problem among some gay and
bisexual men. The government also notes with pronounced
concern antibiotic-resistant strains of gonorrhea in
California and a high prevalence of chlamydia reinfection
among women.
Doctors
are advised to screen their gay and bisexual patients annually
for HIV, chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea, and vaccinate them
against hepatitis A and B. The CDC also advised that men with
more than one partner be tested more frequently.
"The
CDC is reaching out to the private medical sector, beyond
public health clinics, to try and make doctors more aware of
the risks of undiagnosed and untreated STDs," said Dr.
Ronald Valdiserr of the CDC's national center for HIV, STD and
tuberculosis prevention.
Among
other recommendations, doctors have been advised to discourage
the use of nonoxynol-9, which has been associated with urinary
tract infections in women and damage to rectal lining in gay
and bisexual men.
Valdiserri
said the notice to doctors from health officials was simple
and direct, "talk to your patients... Find out their
sexual history. If they're in a stable monogamous
relationship, this doesn't apply to them. If they are someone
with many sexual partners, they should be screened more
frequently. That's really the message."
--
Editor
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