U.S. Agency Offers Help to County in Battle on Syphilis

Federal officials said Friday they intend to deploy up to 30 new public health workers to help fight the spread of syphilis in Los Angeles County, and they hope eventually to use the county as a national training ground for schooling venereal disease investigators.

The new workers are to be dispatched this summer and would remain for several years under a plan proposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. They would nearly triple the federal manpower assigned to venereal disease control in the county, which is experiencing a dramatic rise in infectious syphilis.

‘Get the Experience’

“We’re trying to over-staff until we can get through the current dilemma,” Mark Schrader, a top Centers for Disease Control official, said. “We’re putting (the new workers) into some of the highest (disease) areas so that they can get the experience needed.”

The new investigators represent nearly a third of about 100 new positions recently granted to the federal disease-control agency, which has watched national venereal disease rates rise while its work force has dwindled under the impact of federal budget restraints.

The agency intends to target those workers in some of the nation’s hardest-hit areas--California, Florida and Georgia. Officials hope that approach will help check the rising rate of syphilis and provide especially intensive training for new recruits.

“These are folks that we will be paying for, over and above what we give L.A. County in terms of federal support,” said Schrader, director of field investigations in the sexually transmitted disease division. “In that sense, it’s not costing the county anything.”

Federal officials have asked the county Department of Health Services for assurances that the county will provide adequate office space, telephones and training facilities in return for the new allocation of federal manpower.

County Welcomes Offer

County health officials said Friday they welcome the offer and intend to try to find space for the new recruits. Both sides said many details remain to be ironed out before the first investigators begin training, perhaps as soon as July.

“House rule No. 1 is ‘Take everything that’s free,’ ” said Dr. Shirley Fannin, in charge of communicable disease control for the county. “House rule No. 2 is ‘Always have an alternative.’ So we will welcome any assistance we can get.”

The rate of infectious syphilis in the county has risen since 1985 from 24.3 to 55.6 cases per 100,000 population--nearly four times the national level. Officials say the rates in some areas are the worst they have seen since the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s.

Those areas include parts of South and South-Central Los Angeles County where investigators trace the increase in part to the practice of exchanging sex for drugs--a practice that has increased with the recent rise of intensely addictive crack cocaine.

On Friday, federal officials said they hope to dispatch the new recruits to the county in groups of seven to 10 during July, August and September. Two new middle-level managers are also scheduled to begin work in mid-July.

Eight Weeks of Training

The investigators, most of them just out of college, will undergo eight weeks of training in the intricacies of venereal disease and the detective work of tracking down sexual contacts. They will also serve an apprenticeship in the field before being sent out on their own.

John Vadnais, the Centers for Disease Control’s top representative in the California region, said the new workers will stay on in Los Angeles for several years. Orange County and Long Beach, which have their own health programs, will also receive several additional workers, he said.

Eventually, the agency hopes Los Angeles County might become a training ground for investigators who will then move on to other parts of the country, Schrader said. The training program might include investigation as well as such things as epidemiology and budget preparation.