> The first-of-its-kind cluster—in five women all linked to one infected man It seems a bit of a stretch to call this "first of its kind." Regardless of the me

> The first-of-its-kind cluster—in five women all linked to one infected man It seems a bit of a stretch to call this "first of its kind." Regardless of the mechanistic details, the transmission was still sexual, which is how Syphillis has always spread. It would be "first of its kind" if this cluster were linked to transmission through other means... After reading the article, I'm not even clear what's notable about this incident, other than maybe that this specific strain happens to primarily target the ocular system (which isn't unusual anyway). Multiple people had sex with the same syphillis-infected partner, and now they all have syphillis. News at 11... BTW: has anyone considered the chilling effect that contact tracing exemptions to HIPPA have on STI testing? Maybe this guy was hard to track down because he didn't want to be found. Maybe he didn't complete the testing procedures because he didn't want his name logged in the database as someone with syphillis...