Posted on 07/28/2003 7:52:55 AM PDT by presidio9
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 that the disease might be poised for a major comeback in this high-risk group.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites), which reported the finding on Monday at the 2003 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, also revealed that AIDS diagnoses overall had risen 2.2 percent to 42,136 last year.
"The AIDS epidemic in the United States is far from over," said Dr. Harold Jaffe, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention.
An estimated 850,000 to 950,000 Americans have the AIDS virus. AIDS 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 infections among 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 high-risk group have increased 17.7 percent since 1999, while remaining stable in other vulnerable communities.
Jaffe cautioned, however, that the jump in HIV diagnoses could have been caused by increases in the number of gay and bisexual males being tested for the virus and was not proof that this group was being infected at a faster rate.
STANDARD TESTS
Standard HIV tests cannot tell when a person was infected with the virus, leaving open the possibility that HIV was contracted many years before being detected.
That could change in the coming months as the CDC implements a new HIV tracking system, which is based on a blood test that it says can determine whether a person had been infected with HIV in the previous six months.
CDC officials said the new surveillance strategy, was prompted by a need for more precise data on HIV infections and trends. About 40,000 new HIV infections are reported in the nation 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 predict when a person contracted HIV.
"It will provide us timely information on HIV transmission that is occurring now," said Dr. Robert Janssen, who directs HIV prevention programs at the Atlanta-based agency.
"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 HIV infections by 2004. The agency has allocated $13 million in supplemental funding to state health departments for the program in fiscal 2004.
After 18 years they're starting antigen testing?? Speedy bunch.
What is this supposed to mean??
AIDS is not a virus.
One article I had bookmarked,but I don't know how to link you with can be found at www.duesberg.com/africa2.html.I am sorry I can't do better but the information is very interesting.Most of the threads at FR had AIDS in the title so might do a search and then link with some of the posters links.
The radical gays will never learn because their brains are in their d**ks!
I take it that you don't visit too many museums then. While it's hard to be sure, Leonardo Da Vinci is considered by many to have been a homosexual. He was certainly accused of this during his lifetime. He contributed a bit to our learning and culture.
But, but, but
the Libertines assured us that it is no concern of ours what adults do in their private spaces.
Not too many, just the major ones in all the large cities throughout the world.
While it's hard to be sure, Leonardo Da Vinci is considered by many to have been a homosexual. He was certainly accused of this during his lifetime. He contributed a bit to our learning and culture.
Was he trying to get thought-crime (i.e., hate crime) laws passed? Was he lobbying government for special treatment? Did he have a pink triangle on his car, and want to be a Boy Scout leader? Did he run around telling everyone about his sexuality and how it should be celebrated? Did he have anonymous sex with multiple partners, then ask the government to pay for curing his latest dose? Was he on one of those floats during the gay pride parade wearing a g-string and gyrating his hips?
Undoubtedly, poofs have made contributions to science and medicine, the arts, civil engineering, architecture ... probably even 2%, or whatever the percentage is that they are among the general population. These days however, homosexuality is a socio-political force that is at the center of the dismantling of institutions that have woven society together for thousands of years.
For the most part, I am a 'live and let live' kind of guy. But to the extent that the gay lobby is involved in passing thought-crime laws, compromising institutions upon which society is built, and costing millions in misdirected research funds because of the idiocy of political correctness, all the while maintaining the devialt, promiscuous, amoral "lifestyle" they enbrace, I can live without them ... moreover, I wish them to fail. Badly.
LOL
Yes, more women now have AIDS than people probably realize. Especially in certain groups that use different definitions for what "homosexual" means. Some groups think homosexuals are those who are exclusively homosexual, if a man has a wife or girlfriend then he isn't one.
Since the HIV lab test is fairly expensive, I wonder how many Africans have actually been tested. How can they tell the difference between dying from TB or malaria from dying from AIDS?
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