Recklessly Responsible Rats

On Birth Control?

Arizona’s Supreme Court decision to reinstate an 1864 law criminalizing abortion seems crazy and yet totally fitting for a time when so many people seem to want to go backwards. Losing abortion rights was just a first step. They’re coming for IVF, birth control, and all remaining ways that people have to prevent or end a pregnancy. They’re coming after our right to watch porn in our own homes or dress up as drag queens at the library. They’re banning books. They’re wrenching trans care away from the vulnerable kids who need it. They’ve already attacked science and dangerously chipped away at vaccination rates. And they^* desperately want to bring back the Comstock Law which could put a nationwide end to abortion, contraception, education, and porn in one fell swoop.

Of course, the worst regression right now is the possibility that Donald Trump could win this election (or convince people that he had). The man is currently on trial for paying hush money to a porn star (a case that the press keeps noting is the first of his criminal trials). He’s in such poor physical shape that he can’t even stay awake in court. His poor mental shape is evident every time he opens his mouth. At a recent rally he went from his typical word salad to absolute gibberish that didn’t resemble speech. (Nobody asked, but I agree with all of the late-stage dementia theories.)

This backward momentum makes me so angry. The once-again-valid AZ law was passed one year before the civil war ended, two years before the 14^th amendment granted citizenship to former slaves, and three years before black men were given the right to vote. It was passed 56 years before women could vote, 96 years before the pill was invented, and 110 years before we ladies could have a credit card in our own name.

It was also 66 years before indoor plumbing became widely affordable, 68 years before penicillin was invented, and 83 years before people could have air conditioners in their homes. Life expectancy had just crept up to 40 and it was estimated that most parents lost 2 or 3 of their children.

I don’t want to live in 1864. Why do they?

* I recognize that the “they” in this diatribe may differ in specifics, from state lawmakers to Republican party leaders to “concerned parents.” Nonetheless, “they” are all part of a concerted effort to reverse what most of us see as progress.

Oklahoma Where an STI Lands You in Jail   

In keeping with Republican’s obvious goal of outlawing all things sex, the Oklahoma House just passed a bill making it a felony to transmit a long list of STIs (and conditions they seem to think are STIs, but we’ll get to that). Those found guilty would be sentenced to a minimum of two years in prison and a maximum of five. The sponsors of the bill believe that this will encourage testing and prevent the spread of STIs in the state, but we all know that’s not how it f**king works.

Oklahoma already has a law that makes it a crime to intentionally spread gonorrhea, syphilis, or smallpox (which is not an STI and has been eradicated in North America since the early 1950s, but sure). A separate law criminalizes intentional HIV transmission. The current bill, which sailed through the House in a 78-14 vote, would add a whole host of other bacteria, viruses, and conditions to the list of potentially criminal transmission including chlamydia, bacterial vaginosis, herpes, HPV, hepatitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, and trichomoniasis.

Let’s start with the fact that not all of these conditions are STIs and some of them aren’t even communicable diseases. Bacterial vaginosis, for example, is a common vaginal infection that happens when there is an overgrowth of the bacteria that naturally live in the vagina. BV is not sexually transmitted. Having an STI may disrupt the delicate balance of vaginal bacteria and cause BV, but many other things—such as a Wednesday of deep dicking or a Sunday spent douching—can also lead to BV. (Health tip: don’t spend Sunday douching. It’s bad for your vagina.)

Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID) is another one that should never have made this list (not that this list should exist, but you get my added frustration). PID is an infection of internal reproductive organs including the cervix, uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. If left untreated, PID can lead to scarring of these organs and result in infertility. While PID is often caused by untreated chlamydia and gonorrhea infections, it can also be caused by other infections that are not sexually transmitted. 

The law also mentions hepatitis but doesn’t specify which type of the virus it is targeting. Some types of Hepatitis—including Hep B and Hep C—are sexually transmitted, but others are not. Hep A, for example, is often passed by restaurant workers and others who prepare food. Are we going to send the Subway sandwichmaker who didn’t wash his hands after pooping to jail? (To be clear, I’d punish him for this long before I’d punish him for giving his girlfriend chlamydia that he probably didn’t know he had.)

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Toni Hasenback, says that it’s aimed at those who “are knowingly and willingly infecting people with this disease,” but the language in the bill isn’t that clear. It says that someone is guilty of a felony if they spread one of these conditions “with intent” or if they are found to “recklessly be responsible for the spread” of one of these conditions.

Could someone who didn’t know they had chlamydia but should have been getting tested every year be charged with recklessness? What about the person with herpes who didn’t use condoms because they hadn’t had an outbreak in over ten years? How long before a zealous prosecutor decides someone is reckless because they’ve had “too much” sex or “too many” partners? Who wants to place bets on whether that standard will be evenly applied to straight white men as it is to women, gay men, trans people, and people in other marginalized communities?

This law is impossible to enforce fairly. Many STIs have no symptoms which means many people transmit them without ever knowing they had one. The lack of symptoms also makes it difficult for someone to know exactly when they got an STI or who they got it from. Forget revenge porn, this opens people up to complaints from former partners who they may or may not have infected. HPV, which 85% of people in Oklahoma have according to their Health Department, can lie undetected for 20 or 30 years before causing oral or anal cancer, and we have no screening tests for this infection in men. Does this law come with a statute of limitations or are prosecutors going to start hunting down that guy we dated for two weeks in college?

Hasenback believes the threat of jail time will encourage testing, “If you could be punished for doing something like this, I would think you would be incentivized to be tested to make sure you don't go to jail for doing something like this." Again, that’s not how it f**king works. The best protection against being prosecuted for intentionally spreading a disease seems pretty obvious: never find out if you have it.

This laws essentially creates a scenario where people are legally better off not knowing if they have an STI and not getting treated for it. From a medical perspective, however, these people will be far worse off (remember, untreated STIs cause infertility and other long-term health issues). And from a public health perspective this scenario is an utter disaster. The only way we stop the spread of STIs is if we find out who has one and treat them before they spread it to others. 

You’re not doing fine Oklahoma. Oklahoma, you’re not OK.  

NYC Puts Its 3 Million Rats on The Pill

In December 2022, New York City put out the most hysterical job posting in its search for a new the rat czar. We all know that the rat problem in most cities exploded during the pandemic as the skinny-tailed gnawers had a hard time securing food when restaurants shuttered. (At least a few of them decamped to the burbs and made a home in my garden during that first pandemic summer. They’re gone, but I have not emotionally recovered. I don’t do rodents.)

Eric Adams is widely considered a crappy mayor, but someone in his administration has a sense of humor because the job description for this new role—which came with a salary range of 120-170k—was pretty damn funny. It started with:

Do you have what it takes to do the impossible? A virulent vehemence for vermin? A background in urban planning, project management, or government? And most importantly, the drive, determination and killer instinct needed to fight the real enemy – New York City’s relentless rat population? If so, your dream job awaits.

And went on to say:

The ideal candidate is highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty, determined to look at all solutions from various angles, including improving operational efficiency, data collection, technology innovation, trash management, and wholesale slaughter.

What’s not mentioned in the job description is offering the rats contraception, but that’s the newest strategy that Czarina Kathleen Carrodi will be charged with employing. To call rats horny and fertile is a tremendous understatement. Rats often have sex 20 times-a-day, and one pair has the potential to breed 15,000 descendants in a year. Mind you this isn’t one rat having 15,000 babies; this is many generations being spawned in a short period of time. Rats reach sexual maturity mere weeks after birth and are only pregnant for 21 days.

Given those stats, contraception sounds like a great idea, so great that Nelson Rockefeller had the idea to give rat the pill in 1967, just seven years after it became available to people. In the years since, the MTA and Parks Department have tried similar programs, but none have worked as well as hoped.  

City officials believe that the newest thwarter of rodent reproduction has several advantages that should make it more effective. First, it blocks ovulation in female rats and sperm production in male rats (if only they had one of these for humans). Second, it’s offered in pellets that are fatty and salty and so yummy that rats prefer them to trash. (If Ratatouille taught us anything, it’s that rats can have high culinary standards.) Third, at roughly $5 a pound, it’s cheap.

Animal rights groups praise the new plan for being more humane than current methods like glue traps and poison. They also point out that it’s safer for the other animals in the city like Flaco the owl who escaped the Central Park Zoo and lived freely in the city for over a year. He eventually died when he flew into an apartment building, but an autopsy found that the flying accident was probably caused by exposure to rat poison.

Using modern contraceptives as a form of animal population control is not uncommon. Local governments across the country have been birth control to wild deer, horses, and pigs for decades. Zoos are offering the same pills we get in the pharmacy to chimpanzees and other apes. And who can forget about Colombia’s attempt to get the cocaine hippo population under control.

I’m all for it, especially for rodents. I’m now wondering why it never occurred to me to sprinkle a pack of Ocella around my backyard to see if I could make a dent in the squirrel population. (Squirrels are not, in fact, cuter than rats. The fluffy tail just plays mind tricks with us. And don’t get me started on the particular squirrel who fell down my chimney. It was neither of our finest moment.)

Still, I can’t help but feel weird about the fact that we’re expanding contraception options for rats at that same time there are factions working to get rid of similar options for actual people.