The HIV+ gay population would naturally contract other STDs at an elevated rate - If they were inclined to always use protection, they wouldn't be HIV+.

Unfortunately, because Palm Springs is a resort community, there are no doubt dozens of other cases annually that go back home across the US before being diagnosed.

Wonder if they can tie the highest reporting periods of cases in the area with seasonal events, such as the college Spring Breakers who flood the area in March.

Michael:

Yes, they would be.

John:

Palm Springs is a transient homosexual bath house. Note that the actual number of newly syphilitic Palm Springs residents is 'only' 73. That, of course, is the tip of the iceberg. There are undoubtedly hundreds (perhaps thousands) of additional cases of homosexuals who blow in and out of town throughout the fall, winter, and spring, 'partying' for two days straight (pun unintended). Their STDs will be diagnosed, if at all, when they return home after their sybaritic syphilitic Palms Springs holidays, and presumably chalked up to the data base of their home town.

Spring break for lesbians is the Dinah Shore Open in Palm Springs. Don't know about their risk for syphilis, however.

Wow, I wouldn't have learned that from my daily newspaper, I don't think.

oj:

Of course, condoms do nothing to prevent the spread of AIDS, I forgot ¦¦ End sarcasm.

Michael:

Indeed, they increased the spread. Men believuing they were having "protected" sex knowingly had it with infected men.

Condoms protect against AIDS, although imperfectly.

The biggest problem, with both hetero and homo, isn't slippage, tearing or infiltration, but the "one time" where protection is forgone.

Michael:

Failure rates are not only unacceptably high for a behavior that failure makes deadly, but are significantly higher for anal sex. Repeating the canard that they'll be safe if they use them has contributed to the problem.

"Despite a year of education and testing efforts,.."

It's not about knowledge, it's about character. Why do public health officials think that they can educate people into good behavior? How long will the fallacy of "rational man" continue?

Michael & OJ, you're arguing a moot point. I doubt that more than 1% of the people getting these diseases are using condoms.

Actually, I'm arguing that these men aren't the type to use condoms, and Orrin's arguing that condoms wouldn't have protected them from AIDS, which is partially right, but mostly wrong.

I must agree that using a device with a failure rate above 3% to protect against a fatal disease is a bit of Russian roulette.
However, as they're going to have sex anyway, protected or not, it's clearly better that they use imperfect protection.

Michael:

Men who have hundreds of sexual encounters a year using a method that fails 3% of the time while they're being told it protects them is a scandal. Public health officials caused deaths because they were afraid to be honest.