Posted on 08/18/2006 8:46:36 AM PDT by presidio9
The gay community in the western world, mauled by the first wave of the AIDS pandemic, now faces a second storm, according to a forecast released at the International AIDS conference.
Since 2001, new cases of HIV in the homosexual population in the United States, Europe, Canada and Australasia have been rising by about 1.9 percent per year, the research by the University of Pittsburgh said.
Without action to correct this trend -- a return to safe sex or an unexpected medical breakthrough -- the infection rate is set to soar as the population ages.
In 2001, HIV affected on average roughly one in 12 gay 20-year-olds in these countries. By the time they are 30, researchers projected, the rate could rise to one in four. And by the time this group reaches 60, 58 percent could be infected.
Ensuing generations are also at threat, said the study, which was a review of papers in published journals.
"Ongoing incidence rates at this level will yield very high HIV prevalence rates within each generation of gay men," University of Pittsburgh researcher Ron Stall said.
Stall was especially alarmed by the explosion in HIV infections among African-American gays.
In this group, the rate of new infections today is four percent among those between 15 and 22 years of age -- but 15 percent among those aged 23-29.
Assuming an average rate of increase of four percent of new infections per year, three-quarters of individuals in the 23-29 group will be HIV-positive when they reach the age of 50.
"It's not a new story, it has been repeated time and again in the literature in the past... an almost unbelievable incidence rate," Stall said.
"African-American men who have sex with men suffer among the highest HIV prevalence rates of any risk group in the world."
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC) also warned of a daunting rise in the rate of gays contracting HIV in 35 US states.
Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, said the surge in infections among gay men could partly be explained by the growing use of methamphetamines, a drug that enhances sexual appetites and can drive users into risky sex.
He also pointed to what he called "AIDS burnout" -- complacency about the risks from AIDS in the era of antiretroviral drugs, which keep HIV to a manageable level but are not a cure and carry major side-effects.
"We have a new generation of gay men who didn't go through the early years, who didn't see neighbourhoods dying," said Valdiserri.
"HIV is still an incurable disease. In the United States five percent (of the budget for HIV) is spent on prevention," he added.
"America is more interested on treating this disease than preventing it. We can't treat our way out of this epidemic, even as a rich country."
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Hey, I'm not the one who said it.
We are always reminded that lung cancer from smoking is a totally avoidable - preventable disease. Just don't smoke. Well, how about a little cooperation from the gay community before they bring the bill to my doorstep for a cure? No one subsidizes my lifestyle, and I don't do anything to need it either! I didn't go to the party, why do I have to pay for the party?
The rise in the incident rate is an occurance that would be expected in any infectious epidemic, when those most likely infected are falsely led to believe that (1)infection is not really so likely and (2)infection may not lead to disease and (3)disease may not lead to death; which are all attitudes that have found more believers with the younger generations of sexually active gay men. Better medical treatments have led to greater survivability without cures and led to a false sense of health security in risky behavior.
In a sad but true and perverse sort of way, there would be fewer new infections if more infections were not survivable by treatment and led more expeditiously to a fatal illness.
If the inevitablity of a fatality is more immediate and more apparent, and not so easily deferred, that reality has a desireable affect on people's behaviors, particularly when their own choices can prevent the adverse consequences.
Bummer. There is a 100% foolproof way to not get AIDS. Quit buggering each other.
No choice: my employer takes money out of my pay (and being self-employed as a pure mathematician is a non-starter). It's foolish to refuse the marginally free health care services that result, but I'd rather not have folks with an almost studied disregard for their own health in my rating pool.
Generations of gay men are at risk?
What a concept: you reap what you sow.
It's just driving them into it. As if they have no control over the actions. It's the pill's fault. And the pill just jumps into their mouths.
Who do pure mathematicians work for?
Fallen mathematicians?
Who do yoy think picks up the tab for those sodomists whose medical bills are submitted to public welfare agencies?
What happened to "living with aids"?
Does anyone know the current lifespan of a person who tests positive? Is it still 8 years?
If you chose to take your chances, you chose to suffer the consequences of the risk you take.
Only in the mind of Liberals are all the faggots considered "victims", where their lack of responsibility is supposed to be the burden on others to fund help for them.
Same is true in ALL cases of irresponsible behior from criminal elements: the TAXPAYER has to foot the bill for their idiocy.
"Jeez, it's almost as if the wages of sin is death."
ding ding ding
Why shouldn't insurance companies factor risk factor for AIDS into the premium? They do for everything else.
People make a conscious decision to put themselves in a position (pun very much intended :) where they may become infected. Thus, AIDS is a voluntary disease.
If left to its own devices, it will eventually die out.
Some may try and shoot holes in this idea by bringing up smoking and saying that means cancer is also a voluntary disease. Only partially true. There are many forms of cancer that are NOT caused by smoking. The same cannot be said for AIDS.
Who would have thought that could ever happen?
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