Los Angeles Times Blames High Rates of STDs Among Non-Whites in Los Angeles County on... White People

To paraphrase a friend who sent me this, "If I could send one article to a distant civilization to summarize the zeitgeist of America in 2018, this would certainly be a contender. It starts off with multiracial kids playing with a rubber penis in a church, and then transitions into blaming the skyrocketing amount of STDs among minorities on 'systematic racism' (white people). Can't make it up." [STDs in L.A. County are skyrocketing. Officials think racism and stigma may be to blame, Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2018]:

The teenagers tucked their hands into their sweatshirt pockets as they shuffled to form a circle. Some gazed at the asphalt, trying to avoid the game they had been drafted to play. 

Courtesy of the CDC, a look at STD rates by race in America...

“It’s like hot potato/musical chairs, but with a penis,” said the girl leading the group. 

The kids gathered on a spring morning in South Los Angeles were about to get a hands-on lesson in sex education. 

Many health experts say that public health problems are best tackled outside the doctor’s office — that fixing the culture that perpetuates them is more effective than changing a single patient’s behavior. For sexual health, that means combating the stigma around sex. 

The teenagers, the girl explained, would pass a plastic, life-size penis around the circle. Whoever was holding it when the music stopped would have to unroll a condom onto it, completing each of the eight steps they had been taught a few minutes earlier. 

The music started, and the teens looked up. 

The recent all-day event, called Spring Into Love, was intended to get high schoolers more comfortable talking about sex. The hope is that an open dialogue will make them more likely to seek out condoms and STD testing, and eventually reduce the spread of disease. 

Notice anything? 

The focus on stigma is just one of many ways Los Angeles County health officials are trying to think outside the box as they struggle to curb rising STD rates. It’s clear that the traditional ways of preventing disease — patients seeing a doctor regularly to get screened and treated — have not been working, said Dr. Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, L.A. County’s interim health officer. 

“If that really happened, this problem could be taken care of,” he said. 

The county recently created a Center for Health Equity to evaluate the way certain public health issues are intertwined with social factors such as income and education, as well as racial discrimination. 

High STD rates are at the top of the center’s list of priorities. In just the past five years, the number of gonorrhea cases in Los Angeles County doubled, with minorities suffering more than most. 

“The numbers are only going up,” Gunzenhauser said. “What’s going on is unacceptable.” 

Is systemic racism to blame? 

Los Angeles County launched a Center for Health Equity in October to address the idea that “health predominantly happens outside the health care setting,” said its director, Heather Jue Northover, at a recent meeting. “It happens where we live, work, play and pray.” 

The center will target five health disparities, including high rates of STDs among certain minority groups. 

Pattern recognition should be the primary method for implementing social policy (not blaming white people for all the problems non-white individuals collectively create)

Nationwide, STD rates have been climbing for the past five years. More people were diagnosed with syphilis, chlamydia or gonorrhea in 2016 than ever before. 

Some blame underfunding of STD prevention programs, as well as falling condom usage. There’s also speculation that people are having sex with more partners because of hookup apps. 

But the picture is more complicated when it comes to the high STD rates among minorities. Gay and bisexual men make up the vast majority of new syphilis cases. 

In L.A. County, syphilis rates among African American women are six times higher than white women and three times higher than Latina women. 

Northover said that officials need to evaluate what’s called structural or systemic racism, the way housing or education policies may negatively impact people and their health. Studies have found, for example, that people with HIV who had low levels of literacy were less likely to follow their treatment, and that poorer Americans were more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, increasing their risk of STDs. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a white paper in 2010 saying the country could not close disparities in STD rates without addressing “the interpersonal, network, community, and societal influences of disease transmission and health.” 

But that’s a tall order given how entrenched many social problems are. 

Poverty or a lack of opportunity may be forcing women to exchange sex for resources, leading to the spread of STDs, Northover said. There also tends to be a mistrust of the medical system among African Americans, making them reluctant to seek care. Certain neighborhoods may be excluded from access to healthcare because of geography or finances, she said. 

“We need to take a wider lens,” said Northover, who added that she’s still trying to get to the bottom of what’s driving STD rates. 

County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represents South Los Angeles, convened several community groups in 2012 to try to bring down STD rates through collaboration. But the still-growing case numbers suggest the approach needs to be reimagined, said Dr. Michael Hochman, a senior health deputy for the supervisor. 

“If you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, then that’s insanity,” Hochman said.

Non-whites acting sexually licentious with other non-whites and spreading/contracting STDs is somehow the fault of white people, white culture, and white civilization.

Welcome to 2018 America.

Surviving the insanity is your only option.