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>With the risk of contracting a deadly disease falling to almost zero, condoms fell even more out of favor than they already were, says Park. >"If one man is t

>With the risk of contracting a deadly disease falling to almost zero, condoms fell even more out of favor than they already were, says Park. >"If one man is taking PrEP and the other one is virally suppressed, there's no HIV risk at all," she says. "So why use condoms if you don't mind having a touch of syphilis?" Humans really do take for granted the efficacy of antibacterials and antibiotics across the board. These sort of harmful bacteria are completely and safely treatable now in most people, but the real potential threat is breeding drug resistant strains of bacteria, microorganisms and viruses. We shouldn't treat these fantastic tools like a pass to do whatever, we should instead use them sparingly and curb behavior. There are plenty of simple preventative practices than can reduce ever needing such treatments while mostly being able to continue doing what you'd like. A huge amount of these infections could be reduced drastically just by using a condom. Rely on those prevention approaches first and drugs/treatment second to reduce the risk of creating situations where treatments don't exist. This can be said about a huge swath of preventable disease in the US. A bit of diet, exercise, and an once of prevention is worth its weight in gold.

Perseids 6y ago
And one other thing: Cheap, anonymous tests for everyone. It should be the norm that when you hook up with a new person / one night stand that you show them your recent negative test result. At least where I live (Germany) you can already get them sent to your home for 50€ (https://samhealth.de/ https://samhealth.de/) and you can get free tests at your local health office (Gesundheitsamt) if you are not too shy to argue a bit. AFAICT it should be a net positive for society to completely subsidize home tests for everyone, but that is probably an uphill battle against conservative prejudices even in Germany. > A bit of diet, exercise, and an once of prevention is worth its weight in gold. All those cases of just eating less sugar / exercising more / sitting less are unfortunately really hard for most individuals. We really should strive to create environments where doing the good thing is as easy as possible. Like offering free daily work breaks for sport or having healthy lunch meals for children in school.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > AFAICT it should be a net positive for society to completely subsidize home tests for everyone, but that is probably an uphill battle against conservative prejudices even in Germany. Great, now we’re “prejudiced” for not wanting to subsidize other people’s risky sexual behavior. Did it ever occur to you that if there is, as you suggest, a large health burden associated with casual sex culture (and, according to the article, drug use culture), that maybe the “conservatives” are correct to be “prejudiced” against it?
  - thesuitonym 6y ago
    A prejudice is just a pre-conceived notion about something. So yes, if you have decided that casual sex is bad, you are prejudiced against it. Don't be so upset, it's not a problem.
  - m-s 6y ago
    Treating STIs is more expensive than testing, and also paid for through statutory insurance.
  - stryan 6y ago
    Moral argument: functioning society's don't expect their member to act perfectly and always make the right choices. Would you expect a hospital not to treat you because you got injured while committing risky behavior (e.g. extreme sports, trying strange foods, or arguably driving a car)? Treatments like this support "repeat offenders" and the poor bastards who make a wrong choice once alike. Pragmatic argument: It's better economically and for productivity for people to not have HIV, Syphilis, etc. It's far easier to provide treatment and testing then to tell people to stop having sex.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      I think it's actually fine to charge higher premiums to people who take significantly greater risks than the average person. we already do this with car insurance for people who drive certain models, have been in at-fault collisions, have traffic infractions on record, etc. no one "needs" to go skiing or drive a fast car, but a.) we should let them and b.) they ought to pay a bit more into the pool.
pjc50 6y ago
> diet, exercise Against syphillis? I suppose we've had the trifecta of bad HN comments: diet and exercise as a magic ward against all sickness, victim-blaming the AIDS crisis, and suggestions of recording everyone's sexual activity on the blockchain. I've flagged the story for this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Frost1x 6y ago
  No, clearly not against syphilis, against a variety of other preventable diseases (read the sentence before the excerpt). I'm generalizing that we jump to treatment over prevention in health. In the specific case of syphilis, a condom is a great start. In retrospect, it could generalize even further than health because humans tend to follow "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." We cling to fixing things we break vs exercising even a bit of caution to reduce the chances of breaking things as a strategy, even when prevention is sometimes trivial or were talking about our own health.
heywherelogingo 6y ago
"a touch of syphilis" - "It's just a flesh wound". I've never had it, but the web doesn't paint a pretty picture.
jandrese 6y ago
> A bit of diet, exercise If you're talking about Syphilis diet and exercise could make the problem worse. Your opportunities for random hookups are more frequent when you are fit.

Perseids 6y ago

And one other thing: Cheap, anonymous tests for everyone. It should be the norm that when you hook up with a new person / one night stand that you show them your recent negative test result. At least where I live (Germany) you can already get them sent to your home for 50€ (https://samhealth.de/ https://samhealth.de/) and you can get free tests at your local health office (Gesundheitsamt) if you are not too shy to argue a bit. AFAICT it should be a net positive for society to completely subsidize home tests for everyone, but that is probably an uphill battle against conservative prejudices even in Germany. > A bit of diet, exercise, and an once of prevention is worth its weight in gold. All those cases of just eating less sugar / exercising more / sitting less are unfortunately really hard for most individuals. We really should strive to create environments where doing the good thing is as easy as possible. Like offering free daily work breaks for sport or having healthy lunch meals for children in school.

rayiner 6y ago
> AFAICT it should be a net positive for society to completely subsidize home tests for everyone, but that is probably an uphill battle against conservative prejudices even in Germany. Great, now we’re “prejudiced” for not wanting to subsidize other people’s risky sexual behavior. Did it ever occur to you that if there is, as you suggest, a large health burden associated with casual sex culture (and, according to the article, drug use culture), that maybe the “conservatives” are correct to be “prejudiced” against it?
- thesuitonym 6y ago
  A prejudice is just a pre-conceived notion about something. So yes, if you have decided that casual sex is bad, you are prejudiced against it. Don't be so upset, it's not a problem.
- m-s 6y ago
  Treating STIs is more expensive than testing, and also paid for through statutory insurance.
- stryan 6y ago
  Moral argument: functioning society's don't expect their member to act perfectly and always make the right choices. Would you expect a hospital not to treat you because you got injured while committing risky behavior (e.g. extreme sports, trying strange foods, or arguably driving a car)? Treatments like this support "repeat offenders" and the poor bastards who make a wrong choice once alike. Pragmatic argument: It's better economically and for productivity for people to not have HIV, Syphilis, etc. It's far easier to provide treatment and testing then to tell people to stop having sex.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    I think it's actually fine to charge higher premiums to people who take significantly greater risks than the average person. we already do this with car insurance for people who drive certain models, have been in at-fault collisions, have traffic infractions on record, etc. no one "needs" to go skiing or drive a fast car, but a.) we should let them and b.) they ought to pay a bit more into the pool.

pjc50 6y ago

> diet, exercise Against syphillis? I suppose we've had the trifecta of bad HN comments: diet and exercise as a magic ward against all sickness, victim-blaming the AIDS crisis, and suggestions of recording everyone's sexual activity on the blockchain. I've flagged the story for this.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Frost1x 6y ago
No, clearly not against syphilis, against a variety of other preventable diseases (read the sentence before the excerpt). I'm generalizing that we jump to treatment over prevention in health. In the specific case of syphilis, a condom is a great start. In retrospect, it could generalize even further than health because humans tend to follow "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." We cling to fixing things we break vs exercising even a bit of caution to reduce the chances of breaking things as a strategy, even when prevention is sometimes trivial or were talking about our own health.

heywherelogingo 6y ago

"a touch of syphilis" - "It's just a flesh wound". I've never had it, but the web doesn't paint a pretty picture.

jandrese 6y ago

> A bit of diet, exercise If you're talking about Syphilis diet and exercise could make the problem worse. Your opportunities for random hookups are more frequent when you are fit.