Saturday, February 02, 2008

Guardian UK: Gays, Flesh-Eating Bugs,
Drugs, Media, Fear & Anger
If you been even half-following the gays and staph infection story, which like a nasty superbug simply won't go away, you're likely to be very interested in and educated by a fascinating article in the February 3 edition of the Guardian in London.
The author takes a wide contextual approach to the complex factors integral to the story -- gays in the Castro, UCSF research, the virulence and distinction of the superbuy staph strain, the media, and the agendas of the researchers.
One thing that stands out is the fact the lead researcher, Binh Diep, spoke to yet another in a long series of reporters seeking his views and juicy quotes. While Diep has had plenty of time to chat endlessly with reporters, and keep his name in the press, he hasn't bothered to spare any time for a town hall meeting with San Francisco gays.
Here we have a gay researcher, yes, Diep is gay, who's unleashed incredibly nasty homophobia and disease stigma against gays in San Francisco, and he's not the least bit interested in explaining his hysterical comments and research to his gay brothers. Why is Diep not hosting any public forum with gays?
I was curious to read how he anticipated a big media splash for earlier staph research, leading me to think he was seeking worldwide attention for his gay staph research and a central theme for him is getting attention.
And there may be nothing wrong with researchers working to develop sound public health measures, but the total absence of any plan from Diep and UCSF to have a hand washing promotion campaign ready to launch in conjunction with publication of their study is reason to demand more scrutiny of UCSF's behavior in this debacle.

Someone needs to ask UCSF why it didn't have, and still doesn't have, a program in place with the SF health department encouraging stopping staph with better sanitary practices, if the university is truly concerned about eradicating this staph bug.
But though he now regrets his choice of words, Diep, 29, finds the response to the report a little puzzling. 'To be honest, we expected a far bigger reaction last year when we published a paper in the Lancet describing the genome of this multi-drug-resistant subtype of USA300 for the first time. But, except for a story on the BBC and a couple of other places, nobody paid it much attention.'
May Diep soon take time away from all his media interviews and start a discussion with gays in the Castro, just like I hope UCSF soon begins forums with us, because if we're ever going to get a handle on staph infections in San Francisco, it will take public accountability with Diep and the university.
There is one minor fault I have with the Guardian piece, and that is it makes passing reference to a Castro district bathhouse, as if gay bathhouses operate in the city. They don't and the author should know that the baths were shuttered in the 1980s.
However, two snapz up to the writer for doing something the San Francisco Chronicle hasn't bothered with yet: noticing the intense reaction of gays in the Castro. May the Chronicle editors and reporters follow the lead of the New York Times and the Guardian, and get out of the office and hear what the community is saying, then report on it.

As Hunter Hargraves, community co-ordinator of the San Francisco Stop Aids project, an outreach project aimed at curbing HIV-transmission, told me: 'Over the past 25 years, gay men have been a convenient "Typhoid Mary" for people who look to blame segmented groups as opposed to working toward a more proactive public health solution. It is too cruel, too easy and wholly inaccurate to point fingers at a community which has been historically stigmatised.'

Michael Petrelis, a local gay rights advocate and blogger, is calling on residents to remember the lessons of the early Eighties, when gay men were confronted with similar stigmatisation over Aids.

'I feel assaulted,' he told a recent meeting held at Magnet, a gay men's health centre in the heart of Castro. 'We have seen these sorts of stories too many times before. By putting out this report, UCSF has damaged millions of gay men around the world.'

Kevin Roe, a 45-year-old employee of Magnet who's been battling persistent staph infections since 1988, was less angry but keen nonetheless to convey a similar message.

'I've had boils on my hands, on my face, on my buttocks, pretty much everywhere,' he told me. 'They're hard to shift but it's not the pox, and as long as you remember to wash regularly and take basic hygiene precautions they don't spread that easily.'

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