Syphilis Awareness Campaigns Past & Present

 Recently I had to do a group presentation in one of my classes that our group chose to do over syphilis. I handled the entertaining segment of our presentation and I thought I would rework it here to share with everyone because even though it is over a pretty heinous STD it is still pretty interesting and our country's history with handling awareness is pretty entertaining!

The numbers of reported primary and secondary syphilis diagnoses have varied widely since reporting began in 1941, from a high of almost 95,000 in 1946 to a low of around 6,000 reported cases in 2000. As of 2009, 62% of syphilis cases in the United States were attributed to homosexual males. Although the majority of current U.S. syphilis cases have occurred among homosexual males, syphilis among heterosexual males is also an emerging problem. Syphilis is a curable disease with early diagnosis and treatment; however, being infected and treated for syphilis does not mean that you are immune to future exposure. Syphilis can be prevented much like any other STD, by using latex condoms every time you have sex or oral sex, by abstaining from sex all together or through a mutually monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner.

STD awareness campaigns started with the US military and their aggressive public information campaigns to limit sexually transmitted disease among the armed forces, which makes perfect sense when you consider that penicillin didn't go into wide use until after World War II, meaning syphilis  remained serious threats to the troops and the Army's staying power. In the beginning most of the ads played to the soldier’s patriotism by asking them to avoid venereal disease for the sake of their country. This ad is pleading with soldiers to consider both their country and their wives and children back home. 

Here is a British ad focused on warning the ladies that all the rosy cheeked soldiers coming into town are bringing syphilis with them. 

Eventually most ads were aimed at warning men about the dangers of sexually active women though and this one is an obvious example of that. A little too obvious so that it borders on cheesy but it gets the point across I guess.

Here the woman pictured is venereal disease as the label on her chest reads and the soldiers are cleverly warned not to be “her pin up boy”. So cleaver!

Syphilis awareness ads today are much different than the previous ads but then again so are the issues surround the disease. Our battles with syphilis aren’t as dire with today’s modern medicine but the disease hasn’t been eradicated so there is still a need to educate the public.

Using condoms during sex is relatively understood but for some reason people do not always think to use them during oral sex.

Syphilis Sucks is a brilliant ad that uses a condom disguised as a lollipop to generate awareness that STDs are most certainly transmitted during oral sex also.

Alberta Canada’s public health authorities launched an innovative campaign that parodies the popular Plenty of Fish dating website. In an effort to raise awareness about the rate of syphilis in the province they designed the website plentyofsyph.com to look just like any other dating site complete with profiles of syphilis infected singles. The site though is less about hooking up with syphilis carriers and more about disgusting the population into better safe sex habits.