We’ve got the fever for something fierce, MRSA fever that is! After a new study issued by the Annals of Internal Medicine linked a highly drug-resistant strain of the bacteria MRSA to gay men in San Francisco and Boston, people and publications are sounding the alarm, calling MRSA the “new AIDS” but is it really just a bunch of hype? Lifelube.org blogger and AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s Jim Picket joins us on today’s show to talk about this and other issues.
What kills more people every year? AIDS, MRSA or PEOPLE?
I’m tired of seeing journalists equate gay sex with mutant killer diseases, as if the act of a man having sex with another man will create some sort of unholy “Cloverfield” monster. You want to know the REAL monsters of sex are? Children- and they’re the product of heterosexual sex.
I’m just kidding of course, but would it be too much trouble for some people to simply wear a condom when they have sex? How many lives must be ruined until these heteros get it? Wear a condom every time you straighties!
Now, if you’re worried about getting a staph infection the best prevention is “clean living.” A little soap and water, washing up after sex, at the gym or in any public space can go a long way to preventing infections of any kind. Wash your hands often, especially after using the bathroom.
But really, the biggest public health threat we have in the US is not any type of disease, but the lack of universal health care. Most people don’t see a doctor when they have an infection because it’s just too expensive. Hard working folks need to pay the rent and so they sit and wait hoping the infection will go away.
Many times doctors unnecessarily prescribe antibiotics because they know their patients can’t see them quickly enough or simply won’t come back. The prescription is a way to insure the infection wont return. But what are the long term consequences of our health care system and our over-reliance on antibiotics?
On a lighter note, Cheetah the Chimp, co-star of all those famous classic black and white “Tarzan” films is getting ready to publish his memoirs. Cheetah the chimp is known as the world’s oldest living non-human primate at the age of 75.
Just like Meryl Streep, Cheetah was captured from a jungle in the 1930s to become a famous movie star. Later on he struggled with alcohol and cigar addiction but was able to overcome it.
The parallels between these two are endless. Where’s Cheetah’s Oscars though?
Here’s what I think an excerpt of his book will read like: “Ahaaaah, ah, eeek! Oooooh eeeek eeeek ahhhh ooook.” I sure hope they hire a “human translator” to make the book more readable.
Join us for today’s show as the fabulous Jim Picket chats with us about reverse Phelpism (picketing their family’s funerals), the new “Don’t Drop the Soap” Prison sex board game and the woman whose liver transplant made her go gay. We also chat about a large hole caused by a water main rupture has its own MySpace page. Make sure you become friends with the hole before it gets filled and ends up on MyDeathSpace.com which is a site that chronicles the dead of MySpace.
Jim Picket’s birthday was yesterday, and Marc’s birthday is Feb. 2. Wish them both a happy birthday!
The podcast that swings from vines and loves bananas, big JUICY bananas- Feast of Fools.
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4 Comments
Comments
So…. do I Lance the boil first or put the yogurt on it first and I only have blueberry yogurt… is that ok?
that was the most random, funky and creative jingle yet! Loved it
ouch about the mrsa. some kids got it at my school a few months ago. parents went insane. huge measures were taken to stop us from getting it… but no one died.
Love the NY Times article on MRSA and St. Louis Rams’ Line Backers.
Link: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/resistant-bacteria-football-players-and-gay-men/
The article goes on to quote the New England Journal report.
“In our investigation, infection occurred only among linemen and linebackers, and not among those in backfield positions, probably because of the frequent contact among linemen during practice and games….All MRSA skin abscesses developed at sites of turf burns.”
Suggests that men on their knees are high risk. Wear knee pads, everyone!
I think you should get an MRSA plushie: http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/mrsa.html
as compared the the regular staph plushie: http://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/staph.html
I can’t think of a better way to spend the day of my birth but with Marc and Fausto discussing pus Shirley Phelps and talented monkeys.
THANKS GUYS! They also had a nice little Mexican cake for me, with candles and everything.
For listeners who want a some calm, clear info on MRSA – LifeLube has posted on it several times since the whole media drama erupted, and we’ve got great stuff courtesy of Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Magnet in San Francisco. Even the CDC put out a good factsheet to counter the hysteria and the inaccurate linking of MRSA to unsafe sex and STDs in general.
http://lifelube.blogspot.com/search/label/MRSA
MWAH
Jim
Great show, guys! I was curious and a bit worried about the MRSA and the show did a great job clearing things out for me!
Glad we were able to do that MSD – clarity is a good thing. It’s just so important to have context for things. And unfortunately, the media and many of us just can’t resist a juicy, scary story even if it is light on actual facts. MRSA is something important to know about and to have a healthy concern for, but no need for hysteria. I was especially perturbed that the initial media stories linked MRSA to unprotected anal intercourse and seemed to indicate that MRSA was a disease of gay men that could escape into the general population. GASP! CLUTCH THE PEARLS MARY! The fact is, as you and I know, MRSA is already in the general population and is not directly connected to unprotected sex. MRSA is an in infection spread by contact – so that could be via handshake or buttfuck, ya know? And like we said, SOAP AND WATER hons! SOAP AND WATER, before and after any kind of contact, sexual or otherwise.
Will do – you sexy thing!
“When you create law on any work of fiction”
I love you Fausto.
So was this the show with the drunk people? Cause you were all LIT tonight! As in ON FIRE! Great show! Jim is a hoot! And so are you guys, of course.
Thanks for addressing the MRSA thing. As usual, when the news starts spreading about the latest “thing” to hit the gay community, I got a call from my mom the other day asking if I had heard about it and what I was doing to avoid it. I told her exactly what you said — it’s all about keeping yourself clean, washing hands, etc., and it is NOT a gay problem– it involves EVERYONE. Thankfully as much as mom worries, she also gets it when I tell her I’m OK and will be fine.
I think if you want to get the yogurt to work on the boils it will have to be the real fatty kind – and organic!
I just watched a documentary called “Taxi to the Dark Side” which made me think of Fausto’s comment on why Bush never have been impeached and tried… According to this documentary he seemed to have been, through legislation, granted the powers to be “all powerful” and never held accountable.
Love you too Kaleb- if we’re going to start making laws on any books, I want my new government to be based on the circa 1960s “Joy of Cooking!” It would an edible, delicious government with thin delicate hands.
check out this creepy illustration from the cookbook where it shows housewives everywhere how to skin a squirrel:
I bet government based on a cookbook would be a nice improvement.
Great show today, I was glad to see the Shirley/Josh interview discussed … it gave some closure as to what you guys thought of the whole issue. Glad to see you and I are on the same page as far as that goes.
My grandmother has a cookbook from the ’20s or the ’30′s I think. And that one says if you don’t have eggs to use in your cake batter, you could use SNOW! Imagine that! We’re talking different times for sure…
Now I always wondered how one DID skin a squirrel. Now I know. If I catch one I’ll try. Do you pull out its teeth first to avoid getting bit?
Snow in a cake batter? That sounds interesting. I’m going to have to research that for my vegan friends.
So, I am having trouble putting this little item in the community section – so thought I would post it here.
A piece of major news out of Switzerland today. Experts there are saying that if an HIV+ person is being treated with anti-retroviral therapy and their viral load is undetectable – they can’t pass HIV on to someone esle during sexy good time….
Check out LifeLube to get the skinny
Swiss experts say individuals with undetectable viral load and no STI cannot transmit HIV during sex
http://www.LifeLube.blogspot.com
Jim is a great guest. Always enjoy when you have him on.
I was surprised at how lite the talk on MRSA’s was. There seems to be more info on the page here: http://www.feastoffun.com/category/gay-fun-show than on the show. It might have been beneficial for those that did not participate in the msg board thread.
Thanks TrickyToro – were a bit lite, admittedly. Too lite? Not sure…. In my mind, by not making it such a big, scary deal, it was a way to counter the mass hysteria that was going on in the media and among some gay men around the country. The facts are this – most MRSA is treatable. And prevention is as easy as soap and water and not sharing personal items – like towels and razors. I hope we got those things across, even as we were giggling about yogurt and being careful when spotting mother at the gym. Personally, I am so tired of us in public health feeling the need to scare the helll out of people to impart information or encourage behavior modification. Maybe that doesn’t mean we have to be overly flip and silly, but we all have to find somewhere in between, no?
xxoo
There is absolutely nothing wrong with levity, in fact I’m all for it. Gallows humor even. I was jut commenting on how the topic was brushed over lightly. Using it as a title would suggest there was going to be a greater examination and I was just thinking of users who might not have been privvy to our msg board discussion. Anywho, I just meant it as lite feedback not a complaint by any means.
You are absolutely right about that! We didn’t really go into it that much… And didn’t take your eariler comments as complaints – so, sorry if it appeared that way by my response.
MWAH!
Jim