Other New STD Threats
Three other newly recognized threats to infected persons and infants also need to be mentioned.
Two of these disease organisms are somewhat controversial, not because there is any doubt about their devastating effects on the newborn, but because evidence for venereal transmission is less certain than for other STDs. Whatever the mode of transmission, half of infants who develop severe early-onset infections die, and survivors face blindness, deafness, mental retardation or cerebral palsy.
Another large cause of urethritis, in addition to chlamydia, implicates bacteria that act differently from other bacteria but aren't viruses either. These little understood organisms go by the technical name of T-strain mycoplasma (also called ureaplasma). T-strains are known to be sexually transmitted. Unfortunately, most doctors' offices are not set up to do screening tests for either chlamydia or T-strains.
Super-Gonorrhea Worry
The first totally penicillin-resistant strain of gonorrhea was discovered in the United States in early 1976. Since then, promiscuous sexual behavior has spread it to all regions of the nation.
Health officials around the world are becoming worried as more and more strains of gonorrhea become resistant to all but the most powerful and expensive antibiotics "All our steel-capped bullets are turning into rubber," laments one health official.
Medical officials face a serious dilemma in treating the effects rather than the causes. On one hand there is increasing demand for treatment of serious STDs. On the other, recession and inflation have squeezed and cut heala department budgets.
Penicillin-resistant gonorrhee not only is overwhelming health officials' first line of defense drug (penicillin costs about $1 to $2 a dose), but it is also overwhelming the second line of defense drug, spectinomycin (around $5 a dose). In such cases health officials are forced to rely on even more powerful and expensive antibiotics such as cefoxitin ($8 a dose).
Another disturbing finding amplifies man's futility in trying to control STD epidemics by treating the effects and not the causes. It was thought that most males with a gonorrhea infection manifested early symptoms so they would seek treatment. Many new studies, however, show that between 15 to as much as 50 percent or even more of males infected with gonorrhea are asymptomatic — that is, they do not manifest early symptoms but are spreading the disease.
It has been early symptoms in males who seek treatment that has been the principal way health officials trace and treat their female partners — 80 percent of whom commonly do not show early infectious gonorrhea symptoms.
The folly and danger of promiscuous and careless sex are far greater than anyone ever imagined. Many individuals have kidded themselves that their sexual activity doesn't fit the promiscuous mold. They try to redefine promiscuity to make themselves feel better for not being truly monogamous or faithful. They feel they are not promiscuous because they are not having indiscriminate sex with many partners, but only sex with one or two "special" partners.
Health officials, however, report many boys and girls, and men and women, pick up their STD infections after sexual relations with one of these "special" partners. In most cases, the infection was picked up because one of these partners had picked up an STD infection somewhere else at some other time.
Syphilis Too
Another trend disturbing health officials is the 30 percent increase in reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis between 1977 and 1980 in the United States. Also worrying scientists are developments indicating that the syphilis spirochete (spy-ro-keet) may also be in the process of developing immunity to penicillin and other antibiotics. So far it hasn't happened. But researchers note changes in the syphilis organism that could produce this effect.
Untreated, syphilis can cause nerve, brain or heart damage, or blindness or a host of other serious health problems — including horrible birth defects in babies of infected mothers.
Spiraling Homosexual STDs
A soaring STD crisis is occurring among homosexuals, especially in urban areas with large homosexual populations, such as San Francisco, California. Selma Dritz, of the San Francisco Department of Health, said: "With the relaxation of traditional moral restraints and the emergence of more permissive modes of social and sexual interplay in the past 10 years, some major cities have acquired large, highly visible homosexual communities. The frequent practices of oral and anal intercourse has been accompanied by reports of rapidly increasing incidence of venereal diseases, venereal herpes, and enteric [intestinal] diseases."
Whenever an STD or other communicable disease is introduced into a promiscuous group it proliferates like wildfire. British and American doctors report the serious viral diseases hepatitis A and B, which cause jaundice and liver failure, are increasing rapidly among homosexuals. Some health authorities estimate syphilis and hepatitis are 10 or more times more frequent among homosexuals than among heterosexuals because of the nature of homosexual practices.
Protect Yourself
Some who have been indiscriminate in their sexual lives may have picked up a serious STD infection that now lies inactive or unnoticed: that infection can rekindle and infect a faithful mate or innocent children!
Do you think God is ignorant about all this? To the contrary, God is going to respond — and sooner than many realize! The Creator, for now, is letting human beings, for the most part, reap the natural consequences of their own ways of living. But he always intervenes and punishes nations in due time for violation of his laws, given for the well-being of mankind.
Ezekiel, chapters 22 and 24, describe the judgments on nations who, having a written record of God's laws and professing to be godly, have allowed sexual looseness ("lewdness" or "whoredom" in Scripture) to fill their lands.
God's laws, revealed in the Bible, show us how to avoid most all sexually transmissible diseases, or at least cut down to an utter minimum one's chances of contracting or spreading them. (Let's not forget, some few cases of STDs can develop in monogamous marriages or in virgins) Monogamy and virginity limit the spread of these infections. It is permissive and promiscuous sexual conduct, and, in some cases, unhygienic living, that causes STDs to become epidemic.
Treatment of infected individuals is needed. But prevention by proper living — both sexually and hygienically — is the only sound way to stop these epidemics.
The biblical injunctions against premarital, extramarital and homosexual practices and uncleanliness (the improper disposal of human wastes or improper care of open sores) are not casual suggestions.
They are living physical and spiritual laws set in motion by the Creator. God's laws were designed to protect the family unit — every member in it. They are intended to protect and promote the development of societies and nations that obey them. Disobeyed they bring unimaginable social curses. Their transgression the Bible calls sin (I John 3:4).
Few realize the Bible prophesied the alarming social disease epidemics reported in this article.
The Creator chose a special nation — ancient Israel — to be an example of the blessings that could accrue to a nation that obeyed God's laws. In Deuteronomy, chapter 28, God promised every fantastic blessing humans could desire.”Blessed shall be the fruit [children] of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your beasts. . . . Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out" (verses 1-6, RSV).
But note the shocking contrast when humans reject God's laws and bring the penalties of sin into their lives! "Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground . . . and the young of your flock. . . If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in this book . . . then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. . . Every sickness, also, and every affliction which is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring [God will allow] upon you . . .” (verses 18, 58-59, 61).
Prevention is the only way to stop the STD epidemic. That means premarital, extramarital, homosexual and perverted sex practices — all heinous sins in God's sight — must be completely avoided by single persons or married couples wanting to keep clear of these diseases as much as possible!
Only you can determine in your own life to swim against the tide of modern sexual permissiveness. The information and warnings from this article — and more important, from God's revelation to you in Scripture — put you in a position of being without excuse!
If you allow yourself to engage in careless or extramarital sex in light of the knowledge you now have — then you deserve the consequences!
Our free booklet entitled The Silent Epidemic contains added information on these and other STDs. This free publication contains charts, diagrams, information explaining common misconceptions about venereal disease, unusual modes of transmission, VD's tragic role in history and VD phone hotlines for major U.S. cities.
As never before in human history, you and your children, taught at appropriate ages, cannot afford to be ignorant about these diseases. You can't afford not to live by the way of life that will prevent the "silent epidemic" from ruining your life!