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A British public health expert has blamed Facebook for a resurgence of the sexually-transmitted disease syphilis, but Australian STI researchers have called the claim "far fetched".

Data published by several British newspapers this week indicated that cases of syphilis had increased fourfold in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside - the areas of Britain where Facebook is most popular.

Professor Peter Kelly, director of public health in Teesside, told The Sun newspaper that "social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex".

"I don't get the names of people affected, just figures, and I saw that several of the people had met sexual partners through these sites," he said.

But Shailendra Sawleshwarkar, a research fellow in the University of Sydney's STI research centre at Westmead Hospital, said the same could be said about any communications technology - even the telephone - and instead of blaming social networking sites we should harness them to spread preventative messages.

"It's allowing people to meet more frequently, now that doesn't actually directly mean that it's going to increase the rates of syphilis but it does mean that there's more chance for people to meet and have sex," he said in a phone interview.

"At the moment it seems really far-fetched to link them [Facebook and syphilis] together without looking at the actual behaviour of the people involved. You need to not use a condom to spread these infections, so it boils down to the basic message that's not getting across."

Dr Sawleshwarkar cited figures from the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology & Clinical Research showing the rate of diagnosis of infectious syphilis in Australia increased by 37 per cent in younger people (15-19) and 70 per cent in those aged 20-29 between 2004 and 2008.

But he said the rate of infections reached a peak in 2007, and declined in 2008. Figures for last year are not due out until July.

Dr Sawleshwarkar said technologies such as social networking sites and text messaging were increasingly being used by health bodies in Australia to spread information about various sexually transmitted infections and how to prevent them.

"I think use of a condom is more important, no matter what means of communication you use [to find sex]."

Facebook said in a statement that the reports of the syphilis link are "ridiculous" and "ignore the difference between correlation and causation".

"As Facebook's more than 400 million users know, our website is not a place to meet people for casual sex - it's a place for friends, family and coworkers to connect and share," the company said.

Separately, this week Facebook expanded its "gross national happiness index" (GNHI) to Australia. The index attempts to measure how happy Facebook users are based on the number of positive and negative words in their status updates.

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Originally posted by Jambo
I made a similar thread the other day how old people think if you go on facebook within 5mins your being harrased by a paedophile getting murdered and generally being frauded up


Fucking LOL

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Originally posted by sand-eel
In a few years the government will ban sex, unless you have warning signs to wear PPE and do a risk assesment first.

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