Talk:Sexually transmitted disease

Edit request from mfreud, Jan 11, 2012

I would like to see the title of this article changed from "Sexually Transmitted Disease" to "Sexually Transmitted Infection" as the term STD is no longer used in sexual health education due to the stigma attached to the word disease. I am not a very experienced Wikipedia user, even though I have assisted in the creation of a feature article... that was several years ago & I do not remember a lot from those editing day! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfreud (talk • contribs) 19:46, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from Pavelk2011, 5 July 2011

Hi there,

I would like to add a resource to the Sexually Transmitted Disease Wiki page related to rates and statistics for sexually transmitted infections located on the following URL:

http://www.lifestyles.com/health-and-wellness/about-stds/

Pavelk2011 (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Not done: As I see there is already an external link to Google - public data that shows rates and statistics for STDs. Jnorton7558 (talk) 05:44, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 200.188.217.170, 10 August 2011

This paragraph: "The amount required to cause infection varies with each pathogen but is always less than you can see with the naked eye."

Makes no sense. You couldn't see any of the pathogens listed in this article with the naked eye. So what is "less than you can see with the naked eye"?? I am not an expert but I suppose 1 single bacteria can be enough to create an infection. The whole paragraph creates confusion and misinformation.

200.188.217.170 (talk) 02:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for making this request. This statement is not supposed to be about the pathogens but about the fluid carrier. Even tiny amounts of semen or vaginal secretions can cause infection if they come into contact with mucous membrane. I changed the statement to read, "The amount of contact with infective sources which causes infection varies with each pathogen but in all cases a disease may result from even light contact from fluid carriers like veneral fluids onto a mucous membrane." I feel like my wording is awkward. Do you have an alternate proposal for wording? Blue Rasberry (talk) 03:42, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

200.188.217.170 (talk) 01:56, 11 August 2011 (UTC) I think you did a good job clarifying this. The new sentence is as accurate as possible. Thanks.

Add HTLV as sexual transmitted disease

It's sexually transmitted as refers its own page: HTLV — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bubbletruble (talk • contribs) 14:10, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Additional Info

After throughly reading all of this, it is very formal info on STDs; however, should the info contain, at least, the basic common stages of how the STDs are form if a person is doing more than not taking caution or having protection. By this statement, I mean: add information stating what causes each Std to be form between people instead of out-right saying that un-protected sex is the cause of it.

To ensure the reader understands this article better, you can say that having unprotected sex will get you an STD, but make sure it is included that if a person does not use proper ways to keep themselves clean of having any STD form within their body, then yes, by the time they have sex, the STD will be formed if proper hygiene (Spelled wrong) is not used the moment you begin having sex. Plus, make sure even the right questions are included in this article when asking about a person's sex history or cycle. --Zhang Liao (talk) 20:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

STI verses STD

STI is the preferred terminology and the one used by the WHO [1] Thus I propose we move it to this "sexually transmitted infection" --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I still like the idea, but the counterarguments from the last discussion about this were substantial. We just proposed this less than a year ago. What new arguments can be made which address the past consensus which concluded that this should not be done? Blue Rasberry (talk) 04:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a simple reason, not covered in the previous discussion, why this article should be moved to STI. If you are going to talk about STDs, then you have to talk about things like cervical cancer (because it is a disease resulting almost exclusively from sex). But if you talk about STIs, then you don't talk about cervical cancer, because it is a neoplastic process, not an infectious process. The distinction is important, and people need to understand the distinction, especially now that head and neck cancer is becoming largely a sexually transmitted disease! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.195.90.244 (talk) 07:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Can you share sources which support your statement? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:57, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I think that following current WHO guidelines (as the link is provided above)is sufficient evidence that this language needs to be changed. The Public Health Authority of Canada also uses the term STI [2]as does other well known sexual health services such as Options for Sexual Health [3]--Mfreud (talk) 19:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I think there is enough support to move this article.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:06, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request from 71.212.50.243 (talk) 01:59, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Add link to STD Wizard http://www.stdwizard.org/ Thanks

No. This site is for Americans only and it is collecting data on users. Please see WP:SPAM. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Question Regarding Data for Transmission Rate Table

Looking through the tabel labeled "Odds of transmission per unprotected sexual act with an infected person" you notice that the HIV rate given for "Anal sex - insertive" is substantially higher than all the other rates of HIV transmission. Of course, there is a source, so at first I overlooked it and assumed it was correct. However, if you click the source (and unless I am completely reading the data wrong) I believe the percentage should be .62% and not 62%. Here is a quote from the source study:

"The estimated transmission rate for insertive UAI in participants who were circumcised was 0.11% (95% CI 0.02%-0.24%), and it was 0.62% (95% CI 0.07%-1.68%) in uncircumcised men."

Like I said, I may be understanding the data wrong, but if not, there is a huge difference between 62% and .62%. The3me (talk) 09:33, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course you are not wrong. In the future when you see problems like this WP:Be bold and fix them, if you like. If you are not comfortable changing things then posting on a board like this works also. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:21, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Tariq Sadiq's mobile phone test for STD's

see http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/05/new-test-mobile-phones-diagnose-stds include in article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.182.104.126 (talk) 13:30, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Request change of wording for STD table

hi, i'd like to suggest using clearer english on the table with:

Odds of transmission per unprotected sexual act with an infected person
performing oral sex on man
Receiving oral sex - man  
etc etc etc

one example of a change would be:
uninfected person performing oral sex on infected man
man receiving oral sex from man or woman
male receiving oral sex from male or female

just to be inclusive, as STDs do not generally discriminate against sexuality (homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual),
but certain sexual orientations have higher probabilities and lesser probabilities of catching certain STDs
Tierjj (talk) 07:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved, rationale about waiting a while is sound Mike Cline (talk) 16:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Sexually transmitted disease → Sexually transmitted infection – This clearly needs discussing again given the discussion above and the recent move. Last RM is here. Procedural nom.relisted -Mike Cline (talk) 18:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC) Dpmuk (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I reverted the move as part of BRD and the lack of any new information that wasn't discussed in the last RM (the WHO arguement was discussed). Personally if there is no new evidence presented (and there hasn't been yet) of a change in the commonly used term then I'd oppose the move but given that previously there was evidence of a slow change in the common name I'm willing to wait and see before formally !voting. Dpmuk (talk) 20:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• We shouldn't really need any more evidence beyond the WHO. We should be going with the formal name. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:23, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

In January 2011 there was a vote about making the above move and I would like to propose another vote. Here is the last vote. Two others support a re-discussion here in this section since then. The situation is that historically most people have used the term "sexually transmitted disease", but since the advent of HIV many people talk about "sexually transmitted infections" since most people who are infected by HIV and many people who carry any of the other infections (including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis A and B, and HPV) have no disease. The Wikipedia Medical Manual of Style says that "The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name that is most commonly used in recent, high-quality, English-language medical sources" so here are some world disease policy centers which use the term STI in preference to STD.

• World Health Organization (United Nations) - [4]
• Public Health Agency of Canada [5]
• Options for Sexual Health (Canada) [6]
• Health Protection Agency (UK) [7]
• European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Europe) [8]
• Australian government [9]

The major health agency in the United States uses the term "sexually transmitted diseases".

• Centers for Disease Control (United States) - [10]

Most departments of health for most cities in America also use the term "STD", but among American educators (like myself) we would never confuse the term disease for when we are talking about infection. HIV, for example, is not a disease, and people who get HIV in America usually never get AIDS or any such disease because they take medication. The infection is the problem and less so the disease, so must educational outreach efforts are to try to make people aware of preventing infection and not tell them how to treat a disease.

Undoubtedly there are more articles in Google Scholar for sexually transmitted diseases, but a review over the first few pages of returned results shows that the articles using this term are older than the articles using the term sexually transmitted infections. On Google in general STD seems to be the common name, which supports keeping STD per WP:COMMONNAME.

There is such a thing as a "sexually transmitted disease" but there should not be separate articles for STD and STI. The content of this article is entirely about STIs with no information about diseases given. The term STD is a holdover from a time when it was not socially permissible to discuss how anyone might prevent getting a sexual infection and from times when people could not treat infections so never worried about them until they became diseases. I would like the move considered again. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• This is a tough one. Certainly the literature is moving toward STI, but check out the ngram comparing the two terms. It only goes up to 2008, and extrapolation implies that by 2012 the lines will have converged or crossed, but it's not at all clear. Nonetheless, given what seems to be an inevitable trend here, I cannot reasonably oppose this proposal. Powers ^T 15:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose and give it a break for a year or so. Wikipedia is committed to avoiding advocacy of anything on our article pages, that's an important part of who we are. Advocacy of this name change is a good test case, nobody is really questioning the merits of the WHO direction, but the onus of proof that this name change has been accepted is on those who wish to move the article, and it's not there yet. It may be soon but that's still a no. Meanwhile there are many more pressing matters. Andrewa (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. A slightly more formal !vote than my conditional comment at the start of the discussion. No evidence has been presented that suggests a change in circumstances since the last discussion so I still oppose for the same reason I gave then - namely that STD is the common name, although as I noted then I'm not sure it will be for too much longer. Dpmuk (talk) 05:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I do not mind you evaluating the circumstances as not meriting a merge, but I do object to you saying that the circumstances have not changed. We collected evidence from major representative bodies of more countries demonstrating that they use the newer term, and that at least shows a change. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

You're right that some of those are new and maybe I didn't explain myself as well as I could have done. I think it was well established at the last request that STI is the currently preferred term among health organisations and the new sources reinforce this. However the issue at the last discussion was which term is the common name, which in my opinion means the term in everyday use by the wider society not just health organisations. So in my opinion the circumstances last time were "STI is currently preferred by health organisations but there's evidence it's not the common name used more widely" and I've not seen any new evidence here to refute that. Finally, have I missed something? I thought we were discussing a move, as Sexually transmitted infection redirects here I don't think there is anything to merge. Dpmuk (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Our "Use the common name" principle doesn't require us to treat all sources equally. We can, and should, favor more reliable sources over colloquial vernacular. Powers ^T 19:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm aware of that but, as your ngram shows, it's not clear even in books and a google scholar search for 2012 seems to show a slight bias for STD. I'd also point out that this subject goes beyond the medical field into other areas e.g. social policy and no ones presented any evidence of use in other fields yet. So even given different weight to different sources I still think there's not enough evidence to move. Dpmuk (talk) 20:26, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I am completely happy with that explanation. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:53, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

To be honest I also think there's a lot of merit in naming articles by their most correct name (in this case STI) but I think that change would need to happen across the project as I think the extra confusion caused by a few instances of being "correct" contrary to our policy elsewhere is not worth the benefit for this article. What ever title this ends up at I think it needs a good lead explaining the two terms. Dpmuk (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I totally understand and agree. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

contradiction between two article

In this article the only danger from preforming oral sex on a woman is: Herpes, in the Cunnilingus article the danger includes: Chlamydia, human papillomavirus (HPV), gonorrhea, herpes, hepatitis.

so why the different? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.159.162.254 (talk) 09:42, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. Both articles probably need revision. What you are talking about is in the table of this article, and there is no reference. The cunnilingus article is more accurate as all of those things are risks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)