Resurgent Syphilis in the United States: Urgent Need to Address an Evolving Epidemic

Although effective treatment of syphilis has been avail-able for decades, eradication of the disease remains an elusive goal (1). In the latter part of the 20th century, the incidence of syphilis began to decrease, but the epidemic remained significantly entrenched among African Ameri-can heterosexuals, particularly in urban epicenters and small cities in the South (2). However, over the past de-cade, public health officials have noticed a disturbing trend of increasing rates of syphilis among men who have sex with men (MSM) (3). The specter raised by these initial reports, that syphilis was resurgent and becoming hyperen-demic among MSM, is further buttressed by a report by Su and colleagues in this issue (4). The study, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that black MSM were 8.6 times more likely than white MSM in the same states to have syphilis detected, and Hispani