Columbus Introduced Syphilis

Well, he didn't get it from the Philippines but I'm sure the blame game switched directions this time. Scientific American is now saying Columbus, or maybe his men, introduced syphilis in their return in 1493 to Europe. The first recorded case was in 1495. So the basic theory is that syphilis came from the New World, which is, sing it Lea Salonga, the South or now the Third World or the developing world.

Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta report in the online journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that they used phylogenetics—the study of the evolutionary link between organisms—to study 26 geographically scattered strains of a family of bacteria known as Treponemes, which are behind the sexually transmitted disease syphilis as well as related nonvenereal infections such as yaws. They found that the venereal syphilis-causing strains arose relatively recently in humans and are closely related to an ancient infection isolated in South America that gives rise to yaws.

As Anthony Hopkins said in Dracula, civilization is always followed by syphilization. We gave their VDs and their nights were never the same again.
Yes, dearie. It's not only potatoes which we gifted you.