Porn & STD infection rates
2011-08-31 14:08:21.720006+00 by
Dan Lyke
4 comments
Dr. Jen Gunter: Why Porn Bums Me Out claims that:
In 2008, 14.3% of adult performers in California were positive for chlamydia and 5.1% had gonorrhea (Goldstein et al Sex Transm Dis July 2011). About 25% of adult performers with either gonorrhea or chlamydia are reinfected with one or the other (or both) within 12 months.
This is inconsistent with other data I've found on infection rates within the adult performer community, and I'm going to have to dig further.
The paper is High Chlamydia and gonorrhea incidence and reinfection among performers in the adult film industry. Goldstein BY, Steinberg JK, Aynalem G, Kerndt PR. From the Sexually Transmitted Disease Program, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA..
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comments in descending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2011-09-10 14:46:19.645257+00 by:
m
Thank you for the original.
Investigatory work in medicine is applied in a number of different ways, and from a variety of sources. How this is done, and why depends on a number of different factors.
In the OP, the team claim to be the first to report on the high incidence of GC and Chlamydia in adult film performers. They performed a retrospective study on readily available data. They have a biologically plausible scenario.
In initial papers on a topic, investigators rarely involve full blown case double blind control studies, as it is premature to expend that kind of resource on a topic which may be an anomaly, or may not medically warrant such resources. The authors of this study have followed that appropriately. The question to be answered at this stage of any hypothesis is really "is there something of interest here?" In this case the OP is quite probably correct in claiming that there is indeed a significant issue.
Data provided by physicians tend to be quite sketchy. May do not provide the information required by State and/or Federal law. Often MDs do not even provide information on reportable diseases. That information quite often comes from positives reported by laboratories which are generally more willing to report such diseases. This makes such investigations quite difficult.
The critique is really grossly overblown. It calls for an excessively rigorous study that may not even be possible, and in any case is not warranted so early in any such investigation. I really have no idea of the cause rationale for the comments by Mayer. Most of the complaints are simply inappropriate, or not germane. Mayer's claim that the OP is not scientific has no basis, but appears rather to be a red herring.
While I might quibble about some of the statements by the OP, in general they have what meets the appropriate criteria for such a study. That the study is of medical interest and significance, and indeed may regardless of trivial faults may provide sufficient justifications to require the use of barrier protection in the Adult Film Industry.
#Comment Re: made: 2011-09-07 03:56:45.523233+00 by:
ebradway
Here's
the article care of the LA County Department of Public Health.
#Comment Re: made: 2011-09-06 01:15:42.794986+00 by:
m
Thank you for including the critique. Unfortunately the original paper is not
available, only the abstract. So it is not feasible to determine if the assessment
is valid. Without any judgement on this particular commentary whatsoever, I have
seen analysis of other papers that have been deeply flawed even though they
sounded reasonable.
As I have mentioned before, many medical papers are contradictory. As an example I
provide the vit E fad which for which positive outcomes have faded away from the
professional literature. There are countless others. This is because of failures
in project design, assumptions, methodologies, analysis and invalid conclusions.
Most significant is the inability to control the behavior of the experimental
human animal in this case.
Heuristically the use of condoms would provide a significant reduction in the
transmission of STIs among such performers. One would think that they would take
better care of their working equipment.
#Comment Re: made: 2011-08-31 16:01:40.784181+00 by:
Dan Lyke
A presentation that takes issue with some of the numbers behind that report.