CDC Warns Syphilis Cases Among Newborns are at ‘Dire Levels’
CDC’s disturbing report is likely a sign of things to come: Syphilis is beginning to be resistant to antibiotics, and as of October, the medicines used to treat syphilis were in short supply in the US.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now warning that cases of the sexually transmitted disease syphilis are now at ‘dire levels.’
Newborn syphilis cases, which can be fatal, have risen more than tenfold in the last decade and almost 32% in a single year, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Tuesday.
The CDC said that cases have reached “dire levels” in the United States. More than 3,700 cases were reported to the agency last year, up from 2,855 in 2021 and 335 cases in 2012.
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by bacteria that can linger in the body for many years. If untreated, symptoms may disappear temporarily, but the infection can become active again months or years later. Late-stage syphilis, though rare, can be fatal because of damage to the heart, brain or other organs.
Mothers can also pass the disease to their children during pregnancy, which is referred to as congenital syphilis. Fetal infection with this bacteria can create a wide array of adverse effects on various organs and systems, resulting in deformed bones, anemia, and brain disorders. Miscarriages, stillbirths, and low birth weights are also possible outcomes of congenital syphilis.
The report contains the disturbing news that women who were tested and found positive for the disease then failed to pursue the appropriate treatment:
“You may not know you have syphilis, and that’s why it’s so important, particularly when pregnant, to get tested,” Dr. Debra Houry, the chief medical officer at the CDC, told ABC News.
However, the data show that more than half of the babies with congenital syphilis in 2022 were born to women who tested positive for syphilis during pregnancy but did not get appropriate treatment.
The CDC claimed that individual- and system-level barriers to care — such as substance abuse and limited health care access — are to blame for the lack of proper testing and care and urgently need to be addressed.
We have covered many examples of formerly contained pathogens and third-world diseases now spreading across the country. Unchecked immigration from areas with infectious diseases, with no method to address public health protections, will tend to degrade the health profile of a nation.
Then, there is the explosion in drug use. Legalized marijuana and illegal opioids (especially fentanyl laced with the zombie-drug xylazine have spread throughout the country. If women are so addicted to opioids to the point they let the flesh rot from their bodies, there is little chance prenatal care will be a top priority for them.
Yet, the government is passionately intent on controlling Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine.
Why did big government and now the Biden Junta do more to stop the distribution of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine than they are doing to stop the spread of Fentanyl? Big pharma pic.twitter.com/TKoANUAOnL
— Dr. Jake Baker (@DrJakeBaker) November 5, 2023
The CDC’s disturbing report is likely a sign of things to come. Syphilis and other prevalent sexually transmitted diseases are beginning to show signs of developing resistance to antibiotics.
The CDC says that gonorrhea is among three diseases called “urgent threats” for their potential to become more widespread. This means that many of the antibiotics once used to treat it no longer work. Currently, the CDC recommends a single 500-mg injection of ceftriaxone.
Other STDs, such as syphilis and chlamydia, have shown early signs of antibiotic resistance.
The threat prompted the World Health Organization last year to release new guidelines for treating the three STDs. The organization says drug resistance “has increased rapidly in recent years and has reduced treatment options.”
The syphilis bacteria (Treponema pallidum) is difficult to study in laboratories because it is so fragile, making it challenging to develop new treatment options.
Because of that fragility, researchers have been limited in their ability to develop new syphilis diagnostics, treatments, and preventive measures such as vaccines. Effective treatments are additionally challenging, experts say, because of T. pallidum’s ability to evolve resistance to antibiotics. Left untreated, in about 15 to 30 percent of infected people, the disease can permanently damage the brain, heart, and other organs and be life-threatening. Congenital cases can cause birth defects, stillbirth, and premature death.
New techniques to grow the bacteria in the lab may make it easier to study syphilis. But doing so will require more researchers focused on the disease. “There is an entire generation of clinicians and researchers who may have never seen or thought about syphilis,” said Ina Park, an associate professor of family community medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Now, she added, “we need to catch up.”
But, perhaps the most chilling aspect related to the news about syphilis: As of October, the antibiotics used to treat syphilis were in short supply in this country:
The preferred antibiotic treatment for syphilis is in short supply across the United States as infections soar, and more than three dozen leading public health groups are urging the White House to intervene.
The National Coalition of STD Directors and 38 other public health groups sent a letter to members of the White House Drug Shortage Task Force on Monday that detailed how clinics are reporting trouble placing orders for the go-to syphilis drug Bicillin — a long-acting injectable form of the antibiotic penicillin — and those that have been able to place orders are receiving only partially filled or delayed orders.
So, while the CDC can cry for more testing…without effective treatments, we will lose the war against syphilis. It would be another complete defeat for the public health “experts” we trusted to protect us…and our children.
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“ However, the data show that more than half of the babies with congenital syphilis in 2022 were born to women who tested positive for syphilis during pregnancy but did not get appropriate treatment.”
This seems to be the crux of the problem.
That’s because people can’t trust the medical system after so much misconduct and lying about covid and the vaccines.
For sweeping new public health policies and/or novel vax that that don’t meet the prior definition of what constitutes a vaccine? For conclusions presented without easily accessible data? Anything without full transparency of long term safety/efficacy testing? Absolutely be skeptical.
For a basic syphilis test during pregnancy? Nah, that’s Cray Cray. Ignoring it harms someone else. These folks are flipping irresponsible. IMO, anyone who didn’t address this very real but easily solved problem is proving themselves to be unfit as a Parent.
There are cases where people should be sterilized. Some people should not have children where they are shiftless. Both children and society pay a high price.
Gonna pass on any sort of mandate for sterilization. By all means remove the Children and charge the women who knowingly refused easy treatment and transmitted syphilis to that child.
No, it’s because the women who would do the world a favor by having a hysterectomy are the ones having a large portion of the babies. The men with them, who would do the world a favor by having a vasectomy, are complicit.
Both quantity and quality are down on the birth rate.
>>The organization says drug resistance “has increased rapidly in recent years and has reduced treatment options.”<<
How odd. Now that Covid Profits are falling precipitously for Big Pharma Pfizer the federal government and others are announcing another disease is running rampant in the population with little to no treatment options. But But you can bet your last dollar that any new treatments/drugs for the treatment of syphilis that Pfizer manages to develop will come at a huge dollar cost to the patient to make up for those lost Covid Profits.
“Cost to the patient”???? You will find upon patient profiles examination most are covered by the government.
How lovely. CDC fear porn.
There were 3.6 million live births in 2022, according to that same CDC. If their numbers are right, that means that syphilis was present in 0.1 percent of them. This does represent a substantial increase from 2012, but to call this “dire” seems a bit breathless.
The treatment continues to be penicillin, and yes, you can still get it. Penicillin resistance in syphilis continues to be rare. Note that the CDC carefully conflates gonorrhea and chlamydia as soon as they talk resistance, because those really are problematic. But when you combine the (valid) discussion of the problems with secondary and tertiary syphilis with an (equally valid) discussion of resistance from entirely different organisms, it starts to look like you’re just trying to scare people.
The tragedy here is that this tracks to a lack of prenatal care, which was one of the many things that the CDC Covidians deprecated in favor of hiding under the bed for pretty much all of 2020 and 2021. Nor are all that many of our new informally adopted friends from Mexico and parts South establishing prenatal care as one of their to-do items when they immigrate.
The CDC is claiming that things suck because that’s how they preserve their funding. They caused half of this, and their friends in the Administration have done a lot to make sure it continues. But as a major actual problem for the dwindling percentage of normal Americans, it’s got a long way to go.
While I agree with your post, you need to be understand that doctors and clinics NEED that long-lasting single shot of Bicillin available; the demographic being served is highly unlikely to reliably take 1 or 2 pills a day for the next 10 days.
More likely they will sell the pills to someone else for a bottle of Thunderbird or the equivalent.
And then show up at the ER with lacerations when the buyer fails to get high.
Yes, and Pfizer has prioritized production of Bicillin L-A for exactly that reason. It’s been on shortage and allocation, but shipments have continued through the summer. Health systems have continued to work to make sure that pregnant women with syphilis are in the highest Bicillin priority group for the reasons you give. The actual MMWR article (which omits most of the breathless hysteria present in the press reports) didn’t list lack of access to Bicillin as a contributing factor although they mentioned shortage. As a practical matter, if a provider in my (Midwest/South) community needs Bicillin for a woman of childbearing age with syphilis, they can get it.
I have a large bottle of injectable penicillin in my frig, , use it judiciously for farm animals, not ones that are for food.
Thanks, I was just about to post that number myself. 3,000 cases out of 3.6 million births doesn’t seem like a “dire level” to me. What I’d like to know is the economic and racial breakdown of those births including immigration status. Who are the people having children with VD?
Not to worry, at least in Ohio. Women can just murder the baby and be done with both baby and the disease. Ain’t progressive America grand?!
That is sarcasm, for those who can’t detect it.
I get it but your sarcasm hits in the wrong place. To many of these people, the baby is a welfare scheme.
When I was in high school, girls talked about having a baby to get their own check, most were black. That rarely turns out well for those babies, or society. 99.999…% of the time.
Oddly, the study did not mention the portions of the population experiencing this upsurge. I take this to mean it may be connected to illegal immigration and is occurring among the left’s “certified victim groups.” Lack of full disclosure is just another form of lying used by our health commissars.
This is alluded to in the statement
“The CDC claimed that individual- and system-level barriers to care — such as substance abuse and limited health care access — are to blame for the lack of proper testing and care and urgently need to be addressed.”
It would appear that its the colorful underclass who is suffering the most from this malady, those who are mired in ignorance and entitlement.
“Lack of proper testing” is closing the barn door after the bull is out into the field spreading it to all the cows.
Or, perhaps we’re talking about illegally crossing the fence and going into someone else’s field. In that case, test the animals before they enter, or better yet–rebuild the fence and keep them on the other side where they belong.
“Syphilis is beginning to be resistant to antibiotics”
Wuhan steps up to compensate for the lives no longer lost to abortion.
Well, of course.
But, to quote from the writeup of a currently recruiting study,
Or, in other words, no, syphilis is not becoming resistant to penicillin as far as we know. Treatment failure definitely happens, and syphilis is definitely becoming resistant to second- and third-line treatments (as are all STIs in the antibiotic era),
But as far as the breathless media hype coordinated today, the emergency remains as elusive as ever.
Your hyperlink does not work and I’d like to read the study as I’m interested in actual data not fear mongering for dollars.
What I think they are saying is that the trio of VD’s most commonly encountered are showing signs of genetic mutation that can lead to them becoming resistant to current antibiotics much like other infections. This is a natural course of things and well established. From the links in the story it’s clear nothing has breached the untreatable with current methods line yet but research on VD’s has been stopped for decades so nothing is in the pipeline to treat mutated versions of them and that is where the money comes in.
This is simply another sign of the societal rot plaguing what’s left of western civilizaion. It’s destruction is nearly complete, prepare appropriately.
Well, you could always abstain from promiscuous unprotected sex with people you don’t know but where is the fun in that?
“In the months after that announcement, many state health departments… issued health advisories on the shortage and recommendations for alternative treatment options for syphilis patients.”
Really? How about demanding more than a single source of the damned medications (Pfizer)?
I mean if you don’t have enough make more right? Or is that not a complex enough solution?