According to the World Health Organization, there have been multiple confirmed cases of gonorrhea infections that resist antibiotics. While we may see gonorrhea as less serious than other STDs with less silly names, its ability to adapt to treatment is really not something to laugh at. But we’re going to try because come on, say gonorrhea out loud without at least a little chuckle, I dare you.
Of all the scientific discoveries mankind has made, antibiotics are perhaps the most important. Without them, mankind’s ability to fight off infections would be reduced to nearly nil outside of the healthiest and strongest members of our species. Without effective antibiotics, our ability to safely perform surgery would all but disappear, meaning such procedures would only be used in the most dire of circumstances and the survival rate would plummet. This would essentially mean no cosmetic surgery at all, and a world without great big silicone titties isn’t a world I want to live in.
Like other antibacterial-resistant bacteria, gonorrhea developed its immunity mainly because of the overuse of antibiotics. It turns out that gonorrhea of the throat is very easy to mistake for streptococcus, so doctors prescribe standard antibiotics until eventually a strain emerges that resists said antibiotics. This also means that these strains of antibiotic resistant gonorrhea are spread mainly through oral sex, the second most important scientific discovery made by mankind.
Also of note is that in the long term, according to the WHO, we will need to develop a vaccine to stop the spread of gonorrhea because of its ability to mutate so quickly. At the moment, there are only a handful of new treatments being tested to fight gonorrhea and no guarantee any of them will prove successful. I, however, have faith that our best and brightest minds, working together, will eventually find a solution to this growing threat. I also believe that when they do, Gwyneth Paltrow will tell people not to take it and sell some sort of powder made of crushed beetles or something for $100 an ounce as a “natural cure”.