Word: penicillin
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Titled VD Blues, the show, despite its grim message, is surprisingly entertaining. Host Dick Cavett provides his usual wry commentary-penicillin, he says, is the ideal gift for the "man who has everybody"-and Playwrights Israel Horovitz, who wrote the battle of the uterus, and Jules Feiffer find the subject ideal for their black humor...
...Company (Scotch tape, etc.), which contributed $105,000 of the show's $140,000 cost, VD Blues is, in fact, as timely as anything that is likely to appear on TV this fall. Gonorrhea, which many people may believe was eliminated with the advent of penicillin, is epidemic in the U.S. today, and even more dangerous syphilis is not far behind. According to public health authorities, there were 700,000 cases of gonorrhea reported in the first six months of 1972, with many thousands more unreported...
...message, of course, is that both gonorrhea and syphilis can be cured by penicillin and other antibiotics if caught in time - but that the crucial first step is to face the realities of the diseases and overcome inhibitions about reporting them...
...time the test began, treatment for syphilis was uncertain at best, and involved a lifelong series of risky injections of such toxic substances as bismuth, arsenic and mercury. But in the years following World War II, the PHS's test became a matter of medical morality. Penicillin had been found to be almost totally effective against syphilis, and by war's end it had become generally available. But the PHS did not use the drug on those participating in the study unless the patients asked...
...solicitude, however, is small consolation for the 74 of the original 425 syphilitics still surviving. The agency is treating them for whatever other diseases or physical problems they might have, but it can do little for their syphilis. The average age of the survivors is 74, and the massive penicillin therapy necessary to arrest their long-ignored affliction could do more harm than good. For them, the PHS reversal has come too late...