Vancouver is often touted as being one of the world's most livable cities;   
   however, from a public health point of view, it's a cesspool of epidemics.   
   Let's look at just three of them.   
      
   HIVAIDS: In 2009 Stats Can data revealed that there were 7,337 people in the   
   city who had contracted the virus. This was six times higher than Canada's   
   national average. Almost half of the victims reported heterosexual relations   
   as the source, but there    
   are other ways than sexual relations to contact it. Dentists have been known   
   become infected while working on a patient's mouth and youths have become   
   infected by smoking a common joint with a carrier.   
      
   SYPHILIS: In 1995 authorities reported that there were 10 new cases of   
   syphilis in the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA). At the time, street prostitution   
   was heavy in several parts of the City, with several hundred in the downtown   
   area on a typical weekend    
   evening. In 2005 the alarm was sounded when 350 new cases of syphilis were   
   reported for GVA. Fifty of these were among students graduating from high   
   school in West Vancouver, which has the postal code for highest per capita   
   income in Canada. Recently    
   health authorities reported statistics for 2013. There were 531 new cases of   
   syphilis.  This is in spite of the virtual disappearance of street   
   prostitution in the City. An increasing number of victims report smoking   
   joints in common as the source.   
      
   TUBERCULOSIS: As a nation, Canada's TB rate is 4.85/100,000 Vancouver's rate   
   is 7.1/100,000, except for an area known as the Downtown Eastside, which has a   
   rate of 36.4/100,000. TB germs are spread through the air when a person with   
   TB exhales. They can    
   also be spread by smoking a joint with an infected person. New cases vary from   
   year to year, but have been as high as 320 in 2006.   
      
   JL 10-05-2014   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)