STD Alert: Cases More Prevalent Among Men Who Have Sex with Other Men

Clark says to keep your penis healthy.

​ It's time to get those Healthy Penis muppets back on the streets. The Department of Public Health is saying men who have sex with men have a much greater chance of having sexually-transmitted diseases.

The city's health officials released a 45-page PowerPoint presentation (click on 2010 MSM Surveillance Supplement) on all the statistics you'd ever want to know about men who have sex with men, which is defined as men who are gay, bisexual, or have had sex with a man once in their life.

We read 40-plus pages of data and picked out some more illuminating pieces of information.

• City officials estimate there are 64,681 men who have sex with men (MSMs for short) in San Francisco. 

• The MSMs had an average of 4.5 male partners in the last three months. 
• MSMs had gonorrhea, chlamydia, or syphilis at a much higher rate than their straight male counterparts.

• MSMs account for the great majority of the syphilis cases in the city, and the rate has been climbing over the last three years. Syphilis cases are concentrated in the Tenderloin, Western Addition, and the Castro.

• MSMs account for the majority of new gonorrhea cases, which, after dropping in 2009, have come back in 2010 to the highest rate in the three previous years. Again, the highest rate was in the Castro.

• Females in San Francisco are more likely to get chlamydia, though the rate has stabilized. Meanwhile, the MSM rate of chlamydia cases is skyrocketing. Chlamydia cases also are concentrated in Downtown/Tenderloin and the Castro.
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• Nearly 19 percent of the MSM visitors to San Francisco's City Clinic in 2010 reported having a female partner in the last three months.

• At least there's some good news: New cases of herpes were down slightly in 2010.
  

The city advises all MSMs to get checked for STDs every three to six months, so you won't become a statistic.

Photo: Healthy Penis campaign

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