Penicillin is No Match for Immigration By Edwin S. Rubenstein

Syphilis and gonorrhea are far less common today than they were before antibiotics—and free condoms—were introduced.

That’s the good news.

The bad news: The number of STD [sexually transmitted disease] cases has recently increased—and infection rates among Blacks and Hispanics are at multiples of the white rate.

In 2005 (latest available year of data) approximately 68 percent of gonorrhea cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control occurred among non-Hispanic blacks. The infection rate for Blacks—626.4 cases per 100,000 population—was 18 times that of non-Hispanic whites and 4 times that of Hispanics. (Table 1.)

Penicillin is No Match for Immigration ...

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