Facebook Accused of Syphilis Rise in Britain
By Partho, Gaea News NetworkThursday, March 25, 2010
For those who feel social networking sites are safe heaven for hook ups, here’s an eye-opener. According to Health experts at NHS Hartlepool in Britain, Facebook is partly responsible for the rise in cases of Syphilis in three areas Sunderland, Durham and Teesside, where the site is immensely popular. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that is highly transmissible through sexual contact.
Sites like Facebook have made it easier for people to “meet up for casual sex“, as told to Telegraph by the Peter Kelly, Director of Public Health in Teesside. According to Kelly, most of the syphilis cases he saw, came from the people who had met their sexual partners on these sites. The victims include a significant number of women.
The accusation on Facebook of aggravating STD and Facebook, has been supported by some stats that suggests, “young people in Sunderland, Durham and Teesside were 25 per cent more likely to log onto social networking sites than those in the rest of Britain.”
Having said to it is yet not been confirmed whether Facebook is the primary factor responsible for the rise in syphilis in these parts of Britain. As explained on TechCrunch, the argument is merely based on an interview with a British public health official. The stats and a interview doesn’t directly prove Facebook’s involvement in the rise of Syphilis, which implies “correlation does not mean causation.” Still it can’t be overlooked that Facebook remains a highly vulnerable meet up point for young people looking for sexual partners.
Reacting to the situation, Facebook recommended precaution when meeting up with anyone they have met on the site.
