In my last post I mentioned that I am obsessively watching DVDs of the TV series “House”. This is not the first TV series that I have bought (or rented) and then watched almost continuously until it was finished. Another one was Grey’s Anatomy. Do you remember the episode in the first series where there was a syphilis epidemic amongst the staff at the hospital?
Today I went to a talk by Dr Patrick French entitled: “The Return of Syphilis”. It was all about the recent rising incidence of syphilis in the UK after many decades of it being effectively eradicated. The most important things seemed to be that (1) the presence of syphilis sores greatly increases the likelihood of HIV infection and (2) syphilis can be transmitted from a mother to her foetus.
That syphilis is on the increase in the UK is bad, but its incidence here is still not nearly as high as that in, for example, sub-saharan Africa (STD Statistics Worldwide (outdated, but still interesting comparison)). Because syphilis is caused by a rather primitive bacterium, Treponema pallidum , which does not seem to be able to become resistant to antibiotics, it is completely curable with benxathine penicillin if treated early on. It seems therefore that in a more ideal world management and treatment of syphilis would be one of many important items on the checklist for reducing the spread of AIDS. But is this the case now? In very poor communities, what are the most important considerations when dealing with AIDS? How important is the treatment of syphilis (and other related STDs) relative to other considerations?
Interesting and rather topical Bronwen.
Earlier today, I alerted a fellow blogger to this which includes a link to this CBC interview on the much currently debated origins of syphilis.
I certainly found this interesting.
Bron –
Interesting stuff, though I was devasted it wasn’t about physalis, which are my favourite fruit (particularly dipped in white chocolate).
‘Mmmmmm! Physalis!’
Addendum – I ought to have pointed that the chocolate was to make it healthy.
Also I did put ‘In Homer Simpson voice’ before the ‘Mmmmmmm! Physalis!’ remark, but because it was in square brackets, the grumpy old system has removed it. That’s censorship, that is. It’s bracketist.
Thanks for the gen up on not using square brackets Brian.
Whilst I was not aware of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, by complete coincidence, the name (and indeed footage) cropped up last night when I placed a link to this YouTube video to Facebook last night.
Dear Graham,
Thanks for the links regarding the origin of syphalis. It is indeed interesting—and I had no idea that it was topical at the moment! It seems to have done some rather rapid evolving.
Dear Brian,
I could not quite bring myself to title the post “Syphilis”—who knows what type of comments might have come to this quiet and gentle neck of the woods.
More on Physalis (unfortunately I do not really have anything interesting to say, though there is an anecdote…):
When I was quite a young child, my parents had a gooseberry bush in the back garden. I think that I must have eaten a rather large number of the under- or over-ripe fruit as I cannot look at them without feeling slightly ill. I think that my aversion to ripe bananas (I will only eat them while they are still green-ish) has a similar origin, though that might also be due to the fact that my mom made me drink banana juice when I had the measles… The parents also had a grape-vine and I have a strong memory of eating hordes one day only to spit them up later. Still love grapes though…
All this talk about food… perhaps you would not have been in such a hungry mood if you had seen the pictures that accompanied the lecture. Luckily I had finished my sandwich before the talk began.
I did a search for physalis and found that although some are edible, Brian may prefer not to eat the marine variety.
(CC-licensed image by minor9th on Flickr)
(CC-licensed image by A Big Child on Flickr)