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Rumor: New ‘sex superbug’ found in Hawaii
3 hr ago By MSN News The Associated Press, which first reported the story about the “sex superbug,” has since withdrawn its story.
FALSE
AP first reported on apparent ‘sex superbug,’ but has since withdrawn story
The rumor began on May 1, when The Associated Press printed a tiny note from Honolulu. State health officials had reportedly confirmed two cases of H041, a drug-resistant gonorrhea. As the AP reported, the “superbug” had first been discovered in Japan in 2011. Others quickly pounced on the story. AP’s competitor UPI trotted out a naturopathic physician to give them the “this might be a lot worse than AIDS” scare quote. And British tabloid The Sun called the bug a “global killer” even though, as it later pointed out, it hadn’t actually killed anyone yet.
But AP then published this story, withdrawing the previous story about the “sex superbug,” saying “The Hawaii State Department of Health says the two cases are a different strain of the disease, and no cases of the new strain have been confirmed.” Had H041 actually been found on the island, it would have been as big a deal as the AP and others said it was. As NBC News points out, that particular strain of gonorrhea is resistant to ceftriaxone, “the last-resort treatment for the sexually transmitted infection.”
But it wasn’t H041. The two cases in Hawaii, as the AP later corrected and as NBC discovered, were actually a different strain, H11S8, that’s resistant to a different antibiotic. As of now, H041 hasn’t been seen since 2009, when it was revealed that a Japanese sex worker was infected.
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Sex Superbug, Antibiotic-Resistant
Gonorrhea, Is Not ‘Worse Than AIDS,’ Experts Say
Posted: 05/07/2013 10:41 am EDT
By: Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Senior Writer
Published: 05/06/2013 05:51 PM EDT on MyHealthNewsDaily
Antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is a serious public health issue, but comparing the illness to AIDS, as a recent article did, is misleading, experts say.
A recent CNBC article with the headline “Sex Superbug Could Be ‘Worse Than AIDS’” quoted Alan Christianson, a naturopathic doctor, as saying that an antibiotic-resistant strain of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea “might be a lot worse than AIDS in the short run because the bacteria is more aggressive and will affect more people quickly.”
However, some experts called the comparison hyperbolic.
“I disagree with the general comparison,” said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an attending physician in infectious diseases at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.
“The rate of complications from gonorrhea in terms of systemic problems is so much lower than the rate of complications from untreated AIDS infection,” Hirsch said.
The CNBC article says that this particular strain of gonorrhea “might put someone into septic shock and death in a matter of days.” But Hirsch said that the rate of life-threatening complications, such as sepsis, from gonorrhea, is about 1 percent, while the rate of death from untreated AIDS is 98 percent.
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Related articles
- Sex Superbug: First Antibiotic-Resistant STD Strain Found (fox2now.com)
- ‘Sex superbug’ as deadly as the AIDS virus hits Hawaii (ibnlive.in.com)
- ‘Sex Superbug’ Cases in Hawaii Misleading, Individuals Not Infected with Strain (scienceworldreport.com)
- ‘Sex superbug’ could be as deadly as AIDS (pix11.com)
- Sex ‘Superbug’ Worse Than AIDS? 2 Reports Of Resistant Gonorrhea In Hawaii Are False (latinospost.com)
- Sex Superbug Could be Deadlier Than AIDS (medindia.net)
- ‘Worse than AIDS’ – sex ‘superbug’ discovered in Japan called disaster in waiting (rt.com)
- ‘Sex Superbug’ Found In Hawaii, Is Immune To Some Antibiotics (sitehighway.com)
- Health officials warn about ‘sex superbug’ (mercurynews.com)
- ‘Sex Superbug’ Not Confirmed to be in US: Report (theepochtimes.com)
Human intervention: The dolphin swam straight to the diver, seeking help
Pain: The dolphin was entangled in fishing line and a hook was lodged in its pectoral fin
Cry for help: The diver said that the way the dolphin approached him, ‘there was no question this dolphin was there for help’
Free: The diver removed the fishing hook and clipped the line that was near the mouth but the dolphin swam away before he could remove the entire fishing line
