Earlier this week, The Daily Mail ran an article claiming that the newly discovered drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea is worse than AIDS, since they claimed it would be more aggressive, spreading faster and affecting more people.

Well, there's some good(ish) news: according to physician and Daily Beast columnist Kent Sepkowitz, gonorrhea, no matter how drug resistant, isn't really worse than AIDS. It's painful, irritating, infectious and can damage your cardio-respiratory system, but the overall effects are not on par with those of AIDS.

I have been practicing infectious disease since Bush 41 was president, and I have never seen a person die of gonorrhea. Yes, it is an extremely unpleasant and tragic infection that has led to infertility for thousands, perhaps millions of women, and yes, it occasionally though very rarely spills into the blood and can cause infection of the heart valve. But death is almost never on its menu. Oh, sure, of the 820,000 new gonorrhea infections occurring in the United States in 2008, I suspect one or two might have died of the disease. Although the $16 billion-a-year cost of gonorrhea and all the other STDs is frightening, the mortality of this particular bacterial infection is not.

The tl;dr version of that: drug-resistant gonorrhea can potentially kill you, but the fatality rate is nowhere near as bad as AIDS. So in the interim, just be smart and responsible about your sex, whatever that means to you and your own personal sex life.  

If you haven't heard, there's a health scare down in the States right now, primarily centred on gay men. An outbreak of meningitis is going around in the gay male community, allegedly thanks to the recent White Party, and Toronto Public Health is here to remind you that if you're planning on heading to NYC (or LA, where a recent fatal case was documented) you should probably get the meningitis vaccine just to be safe.

Toronto Public Health is urging men who have sex with other men to get vaccinated for a serious disease if they are planning on travelling to New York City.

An ongoing outbreak of meningococcal disease serogroup C has been occurring among gay and bisexual men in New York. Since 2010, 22 cased have been reported, seven of which have resulted in death. Twelve of the men infected with the disease were HIV-positive, five of whom died.

Four cases have been reported in New York this year so far. [SOURCE]

The bad news: meningitis can be fatal. The good news is that, thankfully, this can all be prevented if you take the necessary precautions. Yay, modern medicine! Although the additional bad news is that this is going to give your hypochondriac mother one more thing to worry about. Joy. 

If you haven't gotten the Gardasil vaccine yet, and you're sexually active, I highly recommend getting it. Hell, why deny yourself that added little bit of safety, especially if it means lowering your cancer risk? A few little shots in the arm seems like a small price to pay, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, if you happen to be a lesbian, you might be in some trouble in this area: in a report by the American Association for Cancer Research, it's being hypothesized that lesbians may be at a higher risk for HPV and cervical cancer.

According to a press release issued by the American Association for Cancer Research, “This study highlights an often-overlooked cancer disparity,” says the study’s author, J. Kathleen Tracy, Ph.D., an associate professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a researcher at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center. “We know that HPV can be transmitted during same-sex sexual activity, so lesbians are at risk of developing cervical cancer. If these women aren’t screened, they are at increased risk of getting this type of cancer by missing opportunities to identify precursor cervical abnormalities that can be treated.” (Source)

So if you're a lady who loves other ladies, now would be an excellent time to get screened for HPV, get yourself a Pap test, and perhaps get yourself your Gardasil shots. This is cancer we're talking about here, so why not do everything in your power to avoid it? 

(IMG Source: NatalieDee.com) 

Most of the time, when people want to live longer, they just exercise more, eat better and maybe lay off the smoking, cancer and occasional rolls through chemical waste. Or, if you're feeling particularly masochistic, you can cut off your own balls for the sake of living another 15 joyless, neutered years.

The study of over 80 eunuchs from the Chosun Dynasty, which ruled in Korea from 1392 to 1897, looked at the world's only known record of eunuchs' lives and compared them to genealogical records of other men of similar social rank. The researchers cross-checked their results with other royal records. They found that the average lifespan of a Korean eunuch was about 70 years, 14 to 19 years higher than non-castrated men of similar social standing. Three of the 81 eunuchs lived to be over 100 years old. The researchers calculated that the rate of centenarians among this group of eunuchs was at least 130 times higher than the current rate in developed countries. [via ABC]

No, this totally seems like a fair tradeoff, assuming your fear of dying is greater than your desire to not have vital organs surgically removed. Personally, I'd rather live a naturally long life with my gonads not horribly mutilated, rather than tack on 15 extra years of wishing I hadn't cut off my balls. 

Pop quiz! What's the best way to get men to check themselves for testicular cancer? Simple: just remind them that it's as simple as fondling their vanilla beans every once in a while. Because really, what man doesn't enjoy feeling up a nice pair of cojones?

1. The best place to check is a warm shower or bath. The hot water relaxes the skin of the scrotum, which makes it easier to feel around down there. It also offers a little privacy, because it's generally frowned upon to play with the twins in public.
2. One nut at a time, gently roll your goods between your fingers. Mind the spermatic cords and the bundle of connective tissue between your eggs and your vas deferens: those are lumps, but those are natural, harmless parts of the biology. 
3. You're looking for tiny, firm lumps located on the front or sides. They can be roughly the size of a pea or smaller, and they're not necessarily painless. Also, generally speaking, any changes in size or colour down there are cause to see a doctor. Don't panic, but seeing a doctor never hurts.
4. If you don't feel anything, feel free to get a second opinion from a friend. A sexy friend. Feel free to check his too.