Petrelis Files

Newsweek Questions Panicky Gay Staph Coverage

I was tipped off to this important story in Newsweek by Chris Crain, former editor of the Washington Blade, on his blog today. His entry on the staph scare is well worth a read.

This activist's heart pumps with pride today seeing the work of a vigorous gay chorus this week raised questions about the scary staph stories, and that we collectively persuaded the UCSF press office to make an apology for a news release that set the alarmist tone for many stories.

While I'm extremely happy with the questioning Newsweek coverage, even though they don't report on the UCSF apology, I have to say one very troubling negative downside to the fearful articles this week hasn't been broached.

One of my chief concerns when these sort of "gays = new (deadly) infection" stories appear, and they do so quite regularly, many potentially at-risk people, both gay and straight, tune out any message related to good public health and sometimes sexually related infections.

No one is helped when panicky headlines are used to sell papers and drive up web site traffic about alleged new "gay diseases."

Will 2008 be the year in which the gay community finally demands an end to health scares whipped up against us, based on flimsy and questionable evidence? Are sexually active gay men and our health advocacy groups willing to say "no more alarmist wolf-at-the-door" approaches to gay health?

There needs to be a logical and calm discussion this year among gay advocates about the tremendous damage to good gay health policies when the likes of UCSF and the SF Chronicle to manufacture fear and stigma against us, and way to stop these sort of panics from getting out of control again.

From Newsweek:

The headlines this week about a new "gay" infection were dramatic. FLESH-EATING BUG SPREADS AMONG GAYS, said one Australian newspaper, referring to a study about an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection affecting homosexual men in San Francisco and other American cities. EPIDEMIC FEARED--GAYS MAY SPREAD DEADLY STAPH INFECTION TO GENERAL POPULATION, shouted a press release from the Concerned Women for America, a conservative public-policy group.

But is there a new HIV-like public health epidemic on the horizon? Not likely, says Dr. Henry (Chip) Chambers, coauthor of the study, which was published this week in the online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine. [...]

Gay men's health advocates point out that MRSA can be spread through any kind of skin-to-skin contact, either sexual or nonsexual, without regard for sexual orientation. And they have been very critical of the media for its focus on the sexual aspects of the story. "It's very unfortunate," says GMHC's Stackhouse. "It's very stigmatizing, it's alarmist, it's homophobic and it's just unnecessary."

Stackhouse believes that no one benefits if USA300 gets labeled as a "gay disease." When that happens, he says, "people who aren't gay don't see themselves at risk, and there is a risk out there," he adds. "This kind of stigma presents a challenge. 'I'm not gay, so I'm not at risk,' whether it's about HIV, whether it's about MRSA. That's the big downside to this kind of reporting." [...]

Like other community forms of MRSA, this variant is "more virulent than the hospital strain," says Chambers. "It needs to be because it's taking on healthier people." That's cause for concern and increased vigilance, he says, but not panicky headlines.