syphilis

Sexually transmitted disease caused by the spiral-shaped bacterium (spirochete) Treponema pallidum. Untreated, it runs its course in three stages over many years, often starting with a painless hard sore, or chancre, developing within a month on the area of infection (usually the genitals). The second stage, months later, is a rash with arthritis, hepatitis, and/or meningitis. The third stage, years later, leads eventually to paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. The Wassermann test is a diagnostic blood test for syphilis.

With widespread availability of antibiotics, syphilis is now increasingly treatable in the industrialized world, at least to the extent that the final stage of the disease is rare. The risk remains that the disease may go undiagnosed or that it may be transmitted by a pregnant woman to her fetus.

The US syphilis rate fell to an all-time low in 1998 with a drop of 19%, according to statistics released in October 1999 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate in 1998 was 2.6 per 100,000 people, compared with 3.2 per 100,000 in 1997. About 80% of all counties in the USA reported no new cases, and half of the 6,993 cases reported came from less than 1% of all US counties, a total of 28 (mostly urban ones).

In 1997, US president Bill Clinton offered a formal apology on behalf of US administration for the use of impoverished black syphilis victims for a 30-year medical research project without their knowledge or consent. The project began in 1932 and involved 400 black men whose syphilis was deliberately left untreated, even though treatment and eventually a cure became available as the study progressed. The project was halted only in 1972, after an exposé by the Associated Press news agency. The victims and their families subsequently received financial compensation, though no apology was offered.