Data gaps, funding cuts, and shyness about sex let gonorrhea gain drug resistance. There are no new treatments yet.

TO AN UNFAMILIAR eye, the press release from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health two weeks ago looked pretty routine. Its language was a little unnerving, maybe, but phrased carefully: Analysts had discovered a resident with a strain of gonorrhea that showed “reduced response to multiple antibiotics,” but that person—and a second with a similar infection—had been cured.

To a civilian, the announcement may have felt like bumping over a little wave in a boat: a moment of being off-balance, then back to normal. To people in public health and medicine, it felt more like being on the Titanic and spotting the iceberg…

Read the full article in WIRED.