It is time to quit treating the homosexual community as victims, and bring the shame factor back into play. HIV Cases Climb Among Gay, Bisexual Men in U.S. 11 minutes ago Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Paul Simao ATLANTA (Reuters) - The number of gay and bisexual men diagnosed with HIV (news - web sites), the virus that causes AIDS (news - web sites), climbed for the third consecutive year in the United States in 2002, fueling fears the disease might be poised for a major comeback in this vulnerable group. Overall AIDS diagnoses rose 2.2 percent to 42,136 last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) also said on Monday at the 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. "These findings suggest that the dramatic progress against AIDS following the introduction of highly active antiretroviral treatment in the 1990s is beginning to plateau," Dr. Ron Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, told a news conference. Some 850,000 to 950,000 Americans have the AIDS virus. The disease killed 16,371 people across the nation last year, about 6 percent fewer than in 2001, according to the CDC. Although U.S. health officials have been preaching HIV prevention to all Americans, they have become particularly concerned in recent years by an apparent resurgence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in gay and bisexual males. HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men surged 7.1 percent last year, according to data collected by the CDC from 25 states that have long-standing HIV reporting. New diagnoses in this group have increased 17.7 percent since 1999, while remaining stable in other high-risk communities. CDC officials cautioned, however, that the jump in HIV diagnoses could have been caused by more gay and bisexual males being tested for the virus and was not proof that this group was being infected at a faster rate. The data also did not include New York, California and other states with large HIV-infected populations. STANDARD TESTS Standard HIV tests cannot tell when a person was infected, leaving open the possibility that HIV was contracted many years earlier. But the CDC plans in the coming months to implement a new HIV tracking system, based on a blood test that it says can determine whether infection occurred in the previous six months. Officials at the Atlanta-based agency said the new surveillance strategy was prompted by a need for more precise data. About 40,000 new HIV infections are reported in the United States each year. Since the AIDS virus first surfaced in 1981, estimates of new HIV cases have been based on the predictable length of time -- usually 10 years -- that elapsed between an initial infection and the onset of AIDS symptoms. But the development of antiretroviral drugs has slowed the progression of AIDS and made it more difficult to determine when a person contracted HIV. "It will provide us timely information on HIV transmission that is occurring now," Dr. Robert Janssen, who directs the CDC's HIV prevention programs at the Atlanta-based agency, said in a conference call late last week. "What it will do is allow us to target our prevention programs to those areas and populations among whom HIV is being currently transmitted," Janssen added. The CDC plans to have the system in place in 35 areas that account for 93 percent of annual U.S. HIV infections by 2004. The agency has allocated $13 million in supplemental funding to state health departments for the program in fiscal 2004.
This seriously irritates me. Why should society have to help bear the healthcare costs for this very irresponsible group of people? I don't want my tax dollars paying for this.
guys, seriously. it's a deadly disease...no one wishes for it. and the heterosexual community isn't entirely responsible, either. this virus, as i understand it, is more likely to pass through anal sex than anything else. i'm not condoning homosexuality...but i'm not real interested in playing the blame game with a deadly disease, either. let's just find a cure for it. it causes too many to suffer...including children.
That is true Max, the virus passes through blood, and anal sex can cause more umm damage lets say. I believe that's the explanation of why homosexual males are at such increased risk.
Max -- As always, thanks for the condescending moral lecture. Sally Strothers would be proud. I am not going to defend this irresponsible lifestyle which is frequently the cause of transmitting the virus.
i'm not giving you a lecture...but this is a message board and all opinions are welcome. i'm just saying i'm not interested in playing a blame game with a killer disease...particularly one that is devastating an entire continent right now. acting as if homosexuals are the only ones carrying on illicit affairs or are sexually immoral is just not true...it's not the case. it may be true that heteros are MORE likely to be monogamous..but i don't know that for sure. don't be so defensive....now there's your lecture.
Max, emotion has no place in this debate. People are dying in the homosexual community because of the type of coddling you espouse. It is time to get tough with these guys. Also, don't compare AIDS in Africa to AIDS here in the US. The situations are completely different.
Emotion has no place? First off...I'm not appealing to emotions...it's just natural when you're talking about a disease that kills. It's a byproduct of any discussion regarding life and death issues. Second...I'm not coddling anyone. But homosexuals are not the only ones getting this disease. They're just not. So we can point fingers all day long...but it gets us no closer to a solution. Third..."get tough with these guys??" what do we do?? criminalize sodomy? we tried that. Fourth...the heterosexual world flaunts careless sexuality too. insert something about glass houses here. people get all sorts of STD's regardless of who or what they have sex with...because of mere biology, heterosexuals are a bit more protected from this particular disease...but even that's not completely safe. I would love to see people enter into more monogamous relationships...to treat sexuality with some reverence...to actually follow through with their marital vows. I welcome that. We could get tough on people and criminalize adultery, but I don't think that's gonna get the job done. Fifth...i agree on your point about africa. good point.
No Max, I don't care what Hollywood says. It is darn difficult to get AIDS from a female. This disease has always been mainly spread through male homosexual contact and drug abuse. The truth needs to be told, and people who contract AIDS (unless through blood transfusion) should be shamed.
Hollywood??? Hello, johnheath...it's ME...MadMax!!! Hollywood?? You think what Hollywood has to say appeals to me?? I'm not sure how your post was even remotely responsive to mine. Again...we can point fingers all day long...but that really doesn't get us any closer to a solution. People have gotten AIDS through spouses who have only had heterosexual contact...people have gotten AIDS through transfusions...people have gotten AIDS all sorts of ways. I'm not about to say, "let's stop working on a solution to this problem because MOST people who got it are gay and should be victims because of their behavior." I can't say that.
Actually, it is most easily spread through blood to blood contact which is most likely with IV drug users, another demographic that most people don't care about. Unfortunately, prohibition keeps us from using needle exchange programs to reduce the spread of this terrible disease. But that is another thread. I think that one has the right to live the life that God has given them and that in this country, we should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is important to find a cure over the long term, and in the short term, it is important to reduce the spread of the disease through education.
This bashing of homesexuals and false information does nothing to help solve the problem. I don't want anyone to become infected, and hope that the problem can be solved for everyone. Now the actual FACTS are a little different than the whole publicity of this being a gay man's disease. http://www.thebody.com/features/women/ The fastest spread of the disease isn't even among homosexual men who have anal sex. Of course if you would like to blame women and their irresponsible lifestyle go ahead. By the way TJ, unsafe sex is the irresponsible life style not homosexuality.
FB, read the thread, we aren't talking about Africa. This is about an American culture that collectively put on red ribbons, raised billions of dollars, and are now being stabbed in the back by the gay community that will not police itself. The time for pity is long gone.
I'm talking about the spread of AIDS and anyone who thinks that only homosexuals are at risk. It's false to say the homosexual community is turning it's back on safe practices. There are members that aren't but not the community as a whole. Look at some more FACTS about the matter. This refers to deaths in the U.S. and it shows that it has declined among men, and increased among women. http://www.thebody.com/features/women/ Again if you want to target the female community for ignoring safe practices and not policing themselves then that is your choice.
FB, your facts are old. JH's facts are up to the minute, fresh from the CDC. I'm kind of tired of being told by the gay community that we don't spend enough to fight this disease, when they can't even stop ****ing around promiscuously. It is no joke that for all the media spin, most homosexuals admit freely to living a promiscous lifestyle and refusing to use condoms. Well, if they are going to behave like that and since AIDS is mainly a behaviorally transmitted disease, we should consider reducing our expenditures and let nature run its course. If you're too stupid to quit jaywalking on the interstate, you shouldn't get mad at me because you get run over.
If it's truly the healthcare costs you're concerned about, your ire would be far more effectively directed at the poor lifestyle choices of those in America with cardiovascular disease. Compare the statistically small number of AIDS patients in the US (950,000), to the 62million Americans with some form of cardiovascular disease (according to the dept. of Health and Human Services). The cost of AIDS (approx. 6.9billion) is also dwarfed by the staggering 329.2 billion annual cost of cardiovascular disease. Since we now know that the vast majority of heart disease is lifestyle related (poor eating habits, lack of excercise, smoking...) it looks like a large segment of the American population is currently wasting your tax dollars with their irresponsible lifestyle choices. Seems to me, if you truly want to save your wallet, your first stop for morality lectures should be your local McDonald's.
Good point Mrs. JB. Wow, I'm half expecting some of you guys to suggest that we just toss all the HIV positive homosexuals onto their own little island. I just hear condemnation, are there any ideas? Also, the CDC did say that the increased rates could be the result of more people being tested. There's is a problem though, I'm too tired myself to offer any solutions, but like MadMax said, I'm not going to condemn people who have a deadly disease. Heath, what is your deal man? You don't know any gay people, do you? "100 bathhouses," holly crap, I think gay people disgust you or something. "Shame them," what about other people who live their lives irrosponsibly, do you want to go shame them. "Hey, all you thrill seekers, be ashamed for jumping out of airplanes, rock climbing, and all that extreme stuff you do, you are all reckless. Go to your rooms and think about what you did." Hey, should the Govt come out and officially tell the gay community to be ashamed? While we're at it. . .
So gay people in America are irresponsible but all the straight people in Africa and the Carribean are just poor ignorant victims to this disease? For what it's worth, most of these news AIDS cases are young gay men under 25. johnheath claims education is complete in this country but obviously that is not the case. education is on ongoing process as more and more young people of any orientation become sexually active.
