Syphilis is generally thought to have arrived in europe at the beginning of the modern era, most likely from the 'colombian exchange' resulting from the european conquest of the americas starting with Columbus. There is some evidence of earlier incidents, so the origin is not certain. What we do know is that the disease became widespread in europe duriung the early modern era.

Last edited Sun Nov 12, 2023, 03:21 PM - Edit history (1)

I can't imagine that too many people - disease experts or other - would refer to it as medieval. Even if the origin was correct, it's not as though it disappeared for centuries and suddenly returned.

If I'm not mistaken, yhere's a video about it on one of t You Tube's history channels - I want to say "Chronicle" but am not 100% sure - explaining that when endemic here prior to Columbian contact it was much miler - almost analogous to the common cold. But it mutated right about the time of that contact and turned into the horror we see in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.- not just a killer, but a destroyer even of the liv es it spared.

is a good idea in theory. But the reality is that the US simply doesn't have nearly enough health care workers or the collective mindset for a universal system.
The implementation of a single payer universal system would require the recruitment, training and retention of a large number of new workers who would quite possibly be subjected to a reduced and standardized rate of pay as determined by the system administrators.
And then there is still the prevalent mindset that dominates the conversation, that healthcare in the US is a privilege and not a basic human right.
These are formidable obstacles to the implementation of a single payer universal system.

Every actuarial estimate predicts savings during the first year of transition and in every year following. The math is somewhat simple every claim dollar has almost 33% eaten by administrative costs, medicare does it for only 3%. That is the savings along with less time wasted on writing referrals and getting approvals. I've survived serious hospitalizations on both sides of the Atlantic, Europe had a much better ER scene and their care while more spartan it was 100 times cheaper. I spent 17 days in severe ICU on a ventilator and the whole bill for 35 days in the hospital wasn't even 20K euros. Yes some specialized care might get backed up. I'd guess we could get some Physician Assistants up and practicing fairly quickly. Yes the longstanding shortage caused by the medical cartel keeping the seats in medical schools below population growth is part of this mess. But having less time wasted checking coverage for things would speed up care, saving everyone's time including the Doctors themselves. Will our system be at its best the first 5 years, no it will take time for the staffing to reorganize and scale up to what is truly needed. We all all at risk as long as this dimwitted and inefficient system is still in place. This system leads to overcrowded emergency rooms which pose a risk to us all, no matter how healthy and far from medical need we are right now. It only takes a drunk driver to send you into the ER and as long as that is our medical safety net we are all at risk. This is how single payer has to be sold, we can save money right away, it will make even the rich better off once the strain on our ER system is relived and over 5-10 years we will get the gains from preventative medicine.

and first let me say that I am personally in favor of a single payer universal system myself. And I also agree that it would be more efficient and cost effective. And legislators and insurance companies know this as well.. But the reality is that here in the US the insurance industry is making billions of dollars each year from our current system and I am not naive enough to believe that they are going to give that up. So if you have a specific plan of action that would convince insurance executives that they need to forego billions of dollars in profits, bow out of the picture for the overall good of society, and let us change over to a single payer system, not only I, but millions of others, would sincerely love to hear about it. What's your plan?

before the advent of antibiotics during WWII. Everybody had to have a test for it, before they were given a marriage license, probably until the ‘80’s or so ( somebody will know exactly when). I wonder if this is ignorance on the part of the Mirror’s writing staff, or just good old sensationalism.

Cheap and dirty penicillin kills syphilis. The problem is that women aren't being tested. Another problem is what happens to her relationship with the father of the child since there is no way of determining who infected whom.

Of course, that means little prenatal care and this country doesn't think the lack of it is any sort of a problem. Men know where to stick it in but once they roll over and go to sleep. it's all her fault, her problem, and if she's poor, it sucks to be her..

Some sort of outreach has got to happen. Having children born with syp0hilis when it can be detected early and cured is simply unacceptable.

Here's the CDC fact sheet for congenital syphilis: https://www.cdc.gov/std/syphilis/stdfact-congenital-syphilis.htm It is devastating to the child's health and if it is untreated, will probably result in death before puberty.

ETA: One of the first clues that syphilis didn't originate in the New World was the discovery of the skeletons of two children in Aplontis, a suburb of Pompeii that was also destroyed by the 79 CE eruption. Both childrens' skeletons showed the unmistakable damage caused by congenital syphilis.

Archaeologists had missed syphilis in Europe because they'd been looking at the wrong population, adults generally dying before the signs of tertiary syphilis showed un on their bones. They should have been looking at the kiddies.