The Swingers Board - View Single Post - Would you go to a club that required STD Testing

highlander · 08-09-2008, 02:12 PM

I've sent a note to Bernard Branson at CDC who is the author of the CDC testing guidelines to see what he thinks the likely impact of expanding testing of sexually active groups.

Their current guidelines are Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings

They are suggesting things like annual testing of all adults between 15-64 and folks with multiple partners testing after each new partner. Now that is obviously impractical in the swinger community-and those guidelines were not constructed with swingers in mind. I'm trying to find any examples where anyone versed in quantitative methods has looked at the incidence of STD's among swingers and explained why incidence is different than other groups with multiple partners.

I've also sent a note to the medical advisor of sxcheck.com
to see if he had anything that backed up the likely impact of his services.

Just the fact that we have two commercial services(sxcheck.com and checktonight.com) with MD's putting their names behind them, suggests there is a range of opinion in the medical community on the likely impact of expanding testing and exchange of test results in sexually active populations.

Now, I find it plausible that even adjusting for major demographic factors and frequency of sexual activity that swingers are different than other sexually active populations-but I haven't yet seen published papers on that(I'd be interested in any references folks have here).

Anyhow there is some evidence that just expanding testing would impact spread of some STD's:

Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings
# CDC Recommends Annual Testing for All Ages 18-64
# CDC has concluded that that the best means of containing the spread of the disease is to increase the percentage of infected people who know they have HIV.

"The majority of persons who are aware of their HIV infections substantially reduce sexual behaviors that might transmit HIV after they become aware they are infected (5). In a meta-analysis of findings from eight studies, the prevalence of unprotected anal or vaginal intercourse with uninfected partners was on average 68% lower for HIV-infected persons who were aware of their status than it was for HIV-infected persons who were unaware of their status"

I tend to think that encouraging requesting of results from partners would do more-but haven't see a good reference on that yet. The big one there I'd like to see is how this works for HSV since disease is so widespread and responds poorly to condom use.

08-09-2008, 02:12 PM	#41 (permalink)
highlander Swingers Board Addict Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 217 Location: Portland,OR	Re: Would you go to a club that required STD Testing I've sent a note to Bernard Branson at CDC who is the author of the CDC testing guidelines to see what he thinks the likely impact of expanding testing of sexually active groups. Their current guidelines are Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings They are suggesting things like annual testing of all adults between 15-64 and folks with multiple partners testing after each new partner. Now that is obviously impractical in the swinger community-and those guidelines were not constructed with swingers in mind. I'm trying to find any examples where anyone versed in quantitative methods has looked at the incidence of STD's among swingers and explained why incidence is different than other groups with multiple partners. I've also sent a note to the medical advisor of sxcheck.com to see if he had anything that backed up the likely impact of his services. Just the fact that we have two commercial services(sxcheck.com and checktonight.com) with MD's putting their names behind them, suggests there is a range of opinion in the medical community on the likely impact of expanding testing and exchange of test results in sexually active populations. Now, I find it plausible that even adjusting for major demographic factors and frequency of sexual activity that swingers are different than other sexually active populations-but I haven't yet seen published papers on that(I'd be interested in any references folks have here). Anyhow there is some evidence that just expanding testing would impact spread of some STD's: Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care Settings # CDC Recommends Annual Testing for All Ages 18-64 # CDC has concluded that that the best means of containing the spread of the disease is to increase the percentage of infected people who know they have HIV. "The majority of persons who are aware of their HIV infections substantially reduce sexual behaviors that might transmit HIV after they become aware they are infected (5). In a meta-analysis of findings from eight studies, the prevalence of unprotected anal or vaginal intercourse with uninfected partners was on average 68% lower for HIV-infected persons who were aware of their status than it was for HIV-infected persons who were unaware of their status" I tend to think that encouraging requesting of results from partners would do more-but haven't see a good reference on that yet. The big one there I'd like to see is how this works for HSV since disease is so widespread and responds poorly to condom use.
	Last edited by highlander; 08-09-2008 at 02:16 PM.