Where do STDs stem from? They had to have started from SOMEWHERE!?

Answer 1

They mutated from other viruses. The virus that gives people Herpes is in the same family as the virus that also gives you Chicken Pox!

Answer 2

How Do Stds Get Started

Answer 3

They are like any other disease. They are very basic organisms that are found in nature and evolve with their hosts. Many STD's are transmitted in other ways. The "STD" handle is just one used to categorize how they are commonly transmitted. But, you could get the flu from having sex with an infected host. On some level, that makes it an STD.

The more we dig into the jungle, the more we will find nasty diseases and STD's. AIDS came from the jungle in the 80's. I can guarantee that we will see other STD's as we chop up more forests.

If you poke a monkey with a needle and then poke a human with the same needle, and the monkey has AIDS, so will the human. This is a common theory of how that virus spread to humans. Viruses like herpes (HSV-1 and HSV-2), hepatitis and others can be contracted from contact with an animal (not sexual contact). You can get HPV just by stepping on it, hence planter warts. HPV is also the same virus family that causes genital warts and cervical cancer.

So, to answer your question, STD's are all over the place and they come from different places and are transmitted to humans in different ways.

In response to one of the posters, sexual preference has nothing to do with STD's as there are not STD's that only affect one sexual demographic. This being said, lesbian women generally do not get cervical cancer, for obvious reasons.

Answer 4

We are surrounded by all sorts of microbes every day that are constantly evolving just to survive. I don't think the government had the knowledge in the Roman times to help spread them to the undesirables, but they may have. It could have been the unclean bathing habits and also sharing the bath water then there are the multiple partners, and then the germs just mutated as they were spread and exposed to other things. So there are many factors that could be the birth of STDs. Like if you have a cut and you don't take care of it and it gets infected. You can get some serious infections depending on what it is exposed too while healing.

Answer 5

I imagine that there are plenty of theories.. I suspect that the most accurate is that STDs in general have been with us as long as sex has... it just happens that certain infections diseases have a much easier time living in the reproductive tissues than they do in other environments..

STDs can be either viral or bacterial. The bacterial variety take up residence in the tissues and can possibly damage the tissue through feeding or various toxins or enzymes the bacteria produce. Viral diseases invade the cells themselves and hijack the cell's machinery to reproduce, usually destroying the cells in the process. Certain cells and tissues are more likely to be infected by certain diseases for a variety of reasons mostly relating to cell structure on a molecular level.

As to the origins of the diseases, especially the apparently "new" diseases that have only shown up on our radar in the last few decades... I suspect that many of them have co-evolved (for those of you who don't believe in evolution for whatever reason, let's just say that they were intellegently designed as a population control mechanism) and have been with us for as long as we've been around.. occasionally a mutation allows a virus or bacteria to jump species..

In cases of bloodborne STDs, it's possible that mosquitos are a common vector as is the case with West Nile virus. For example, a mosquito bites some species that has an STD that has mutated that makes it possible to infect human tissues, the mosquito then bites a human thereby infecting it.. because that particular virus is bloodborn but is most commonly transmitted sexually, a new STD has been introduced into the human population.

Answer 6

First off, they came from Europe. And, when the ANglo invaders came to what is now America, they brought all these diseases with them. Smallpox (not an STD), Syphilis (is), gonorrhea (also is) decimated the indigenous population. It didn't help that the Anglos had such horrible hygiene; even with their ritual cleanliness, the Indians were susceptible to these unknown diseases.

New diseases are always being discovered. Some are transmitted through animals. Some are mutated forms of benign diseases. Until the time that the role of viruses and bacteria played in disease, there were activities that were quite common that were not very clean.

Most of the STDs that are common today seem to have several vectors (they seem to have emerged from several locations). And medical records were sparse...to say the least.

Answer 7

haha I can't believe how many ignorant answers are being submitted. Gays having sexual intercourse with bisexuals who are having sex with monkeys who also had sex with a sheep who was playing cards with the dogs. Thats pretty much what I was getting out of it. Those answers are how its spread. NOT where it ORIGINATED!! There is no factual evidence as to where it stemmed from. There is no biological way you can determine that factor.

"ORIGIN OF STDS

The origins of venereal (sexually transmitted) diseases are obscure.[2] Medical and other historians have often suggested that well-known diseases such as syphilis, gonorrhea, chancroid and lymphogranuloma venereum have existed since earliest times. This may or may not be true and some of these individuals may have drawn conclusions from ancient texts and manuscripts that may not be accurate. While the infections certainly exist in Homo sapiens , did they occur in the preceding species Homo erectus prior to 150,000 BC? No one knows, but the French philosopher Voltaire summed it up well when he declared in his Dictionnaire philosophique that venereal diseases are like the fine arts - it is pointless to ask who invented them.[2] Among the uneducated and uninformed people in India, we often hear remarks to the effect that the occurrence of venereal disease is a 'visitation from God,' 'a sign of growing adolescence,' 'a sign of maturity,' 'the result of eating nettle leaves' and 'from sexual intercourse with menstruating woman'.[5] Such fallacious ideas about the causation of venereal diseases are still prevalent all over the world with varying emphasis."

Answer 8

There is no answer to this question because STDs are among the oldest diseases known to mankind.
There are mummies - people who died over four thousand years ago and whose corpses are preserved - that show evidence of such diseases. It is highly probable that they were around much longer than that.
There is also a fair amount of evidence that suggests the present incarnations of the two most common of these illnesses have decreased in virulence over the years. Still, it's not yet time to stop using protection when you screw around };^)

Answer 9

STDs go back a ways back in recorded history and medical journals. Hygene plays a big part in the tranfer of organism when it comes to being sexually transmitted. There are already a number or viruses and bacteria living inside of us as well as on our skin surface. SOmetimes we can fight off invasions, sometimes we cant. One partner may carry something that never affected him and give it to a partner who reacts to it. Also, anal penetration in my theory has given way to most of these STD's since our rectums hold waste not only from food but invaders that were in our bodies that made their way in through a cut, by breathing etc. SO having that type of sex gives way for the transfer of weird stuff that would not had otherwise being possible through regular sex. Not only that, ejaculating in the rectum is the easiest acess to the blood stream since the last nutrients in feces are directly absorbed into the blood system from the very rectum. So..have cleaner sex people!!!

Answer 10

If you're going to ask that, you have to ask that about all infectious diseases. Where did smallpox, influenza, TB, etc come from? They all have different origins just like individual STDs have individual origins. HIV/AIDS came from monkeys. It's origins have been traced by the CDC. He was bitten or scratched by a monkey. He then transmitted it through intercourse to a homosexual male flight attendant who brought it to the US in 1982(approx) and spread it to others in the bathhouses that were once popular in the gay population. It is not a gay disease. If the first man who contracted it from the monkey in Africa had been heterosexual, it would never have gotten the gay stigma is still has today. Just an unfortunate sequence of events that have branded homosexuality as being the cause of the disease.

Answer 11

These are simple viruses and Bacteria, that have evolved over time.
Below is a very interesting document about all the STD's what they are and treatment. This should help you better understand how and why these virus/bacteria operate.