Bisexual Women at Risk

B O S T O N, Oct. 24 -- Bisexual women are likely to engage in high-risk behaviors that may put them and their female partners in danger of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, a team of Australian researchers reports.

This study of more than 1,400 Australian women found many of them had a history of having sex with multiple male partners and were at a heightened risk for having caught infectious diseases, such as hepatitis C.

Researchers are unclear whether hepatitis C could be transmitted between lesbian couples, but it say it is possible with blood exposure.

Many health-care providers and lesbians have assumed that lesbians are at low risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, or STDs, within same-sex partnerships. But research such as the Australian study helps doctors better understand that lesbian women may have slightly different risk factors than was previously believed, and may require different preventive strategies to contain the spread of disease, public health officials say.

The findings also suggest that partners of lesbians may be at a greater risk of acquiring diseases than they assume, although experts say more research needs to be done about the transmission of STDs between female partners to know for sure.

A Down Under Study The Australian study, led by Dr. Katherine Fethers of the Alice Springs Hospital, in Alice Springs, Australia, reported their findings in the current issue of Sexually Transmitted Infections, a specialty journal published by the London-based British Medical Journal.

The study enrolled women ranging from 14 to 78 years of age who attended a public sexual health clinic in Sydney during an eight-year period beginning in 1991. Of the approximately 14,000 women who came to the inner-city clinic, around 10 percent, or 1,408 women, reported having sex with a woman. The researchers matched those up with a group of 1,400 women who reported never having had sex with a woman.

Ninety-three percent of the women who reported having sex with another woman also reporting having sex with men within the past year.