Free Republic

p>WASHINGTON, February 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a public statement last Friday, Matt Foreman, outgoing Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, rattled the homosexual activist community by joining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pro-family organizations and a growing number of homosexual activists willing to admit that homosexual behavior is both extremely high-risk and primarily responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. Addressing the topic of AIDS, Foreman drastically deviated from the "gay" lobby's party line by admitting, "Internally, when these numbers come out, the 'established' gay community seems to have a...

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the “flesh-eating” MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday. In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces. The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat. The new strain seems to have “spread rapidly” in...

... The number of new H.I.V. infections in men under 30 who have sex with men has increased sharply in New York City in the last five years, particularly among blacks and Hispanics, even as AIDS deaths and overall H.I.V. infection rates in the city have steadily declined. New figures from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene show that the annual number of new infections among black and Hispanic men who have sex with men rose 34 percent between 2001 and 2006, and rose for all men under 30 who have sex with men by 32 percent. At...

LONDON (AP) - Syphilis is back: The sexually transmitted disease long associated with 19th Century bohemian life is making an alarming resurgence in Europe. "Syphilis used to be a very rare disease," said Dr. Marita van de Laar, an expert in sexually transmitted diseases at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. "I'm not sure we can say that anymore." Most cases of syphilis are in men, and experts point to more risky sex among gay men as the chief cause for the resurgence. But more cases are being seen among heterosexuals, both men and women, too. Syphilis was...

Estimate of AIDS cases in U.S. rises New test places the rate of infection 50 percent higher The Washington Post Estimate of AIDS Cases In U.S. Rises By David Brown updated 4:00 a.m. ET, Sat., Dec. 1, 2007 New government estimates of the number of Americans who become infected with the AIDS virus each year are 50 percent higher than previous calculations suggested, sources said yesterday. For more than a decade, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pegged the number of new HIV infections each year at 40,000. They now believe it is between 55,000 and...

Ugandans Respond to Homosexual Lobby's Attack Against Anti-Sodomy Laws International organization, Human Rights Watch, has history of opposing human life and family legislation By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman UGANDA, September 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Dr. Martin Ssempa, spokesman for Uganda's Interfaith Rainbow Coalition Against Homosexuality (INFAH), recently blasted the pro-gay organization "Human Rights Watch" for "numerous errors and misrepresentations" in their recent letter accusing the Uganda government of human rights abuses for enforcing the country's anti-sodomy laws. "What you characterize as 'harassment' of homosexuals or 'threatening statements' by high government officials is in reality nothing more than the enforcement of the...

300 cases are estimated to be in Victoria area Twenty-five years after AIDS was formally given a name, Texas and the rest of the country still fail to designate the money needed to prevent it and HIV, a Dallas representative said on Wednesday. It's one reason why infection rates are on the rise, especially among women, Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Democrat, told the Dallas Urban League on Wednesday. Anchia's remarks reverberated to Victoria, and to an area that's estimated to have more than 300 patients with HIV/AIDS. "Despite the fact we've had 25 years of experience with this disease, something...

Patients who refuse to change their unhealthy lifestyles should not be treated by the NHS, the Conservatives said today. In a bid to ease spiralling levels of obesity and other health concerns, a Tory panel said certain treatments should be denied to patients who refuse to co-operate with health professionals and live healthier lifestyles. And those who do manage to improve their general health by losing weight and quitting smoking, for example, would receive "Health Miles" cards. Points earned could then be used to pay for health-related products such as gym membership and fresh vegetables. The aim is a shift...

FORT LAUDERDALE, August 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At a news conference at City Hall this week, Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has called on homosexual men to end their public sexual encounters in order to curb the local HIV/AIDS rate. "We want to put a stop to that activity," he said. Since his first public comments in July, Naugle has been attacked on all sides for being nearly the only US public figure to oppose on moral grounds the encroachment of homosexual activity in his town. Now Naugle is in the news again for his determination to...

FORT LAUDERDALE - Mayor Jim Naugle and religious leaders held a news conference Tuesday to draw attention to what they described as the moral and health risks of gay sex. Naugle is in a political war with gays that started this summer when he said public bathrooms in Fort Lauderdale are plagued by gay men cruising for sex and added he uses the term "homosexual" because "most of them aren't gay. They're unhappy." At a news conference Tuesday in front of City Hall, Naugle and other conservative speakers called on gays to stop having promiscuous sex, in order to stem...

Controversy continues to plague efforts to protect young women against cervical cancer by vaccinating them against HPV, the human papillomavirus, but one leading scientist's discovery could throw a monkey wrench into the debate. "We found HPV under the fingernails of young men," said Dr. Laura Koutsky, a University of Washington epidemiologist. Koutsky led some of the pioneering research and clinical trials that resulted in an HPV vaccine, Merck's Gardasil, recently approved for use in girls and young women. The reason her fingernail finding is a potential bombshell has to do with why the vaccine is controversial. HPV, which is the...

 Remember how cool smoking was? If you're 45 or older, you do. Whatever happened to that politically correct, cool, suave, debonair habit that was all the rage among college students, profs, teachers, Hollywood actors, big business and just about everyone purporting to have "intellect"? In a nutshell, some scientists at the National Institutes of Health got together in the '60s, '70s and later and did some pioneering studies that proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that this cool habit could kill you. Today, they're at it again. Only it isn't smoking. That's a dead issue, thanks to science and...

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...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Clasping purple irises, calling out names and clapping to a gospel beat, San Francisco paid tribute Thursday to the thousands of residents who died from AIDS in the last 25 years and honored the thousands more still living with the HIV virus. About 200 people gathered in a performing arts center to hear elected officials, AIDS activists and long-term survivors of the disease reflect on the epidemic that was formally identified on June 5, 1981. That was the date the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper about a mysterious illness that had been...

Ladies, beware of dashing men. They could be dangerous. Young men who are good-looking and know it are more likely to engage in risky sex than guys who have a less positive body image, according to a new study from researchers at Pennsylvania State University. However, sexually active young women who are happy with their looks are less likely to undertake those same risks, which include having sex without condoms and sex with multiple partners. The study: Led by Dr. Eva S. Lefkowitz, associate professor of human development and family studies, and graduate student Meghan M. Gillen, the Penn State...

PAISLEY, Scotland - Research has long confirmed the health-promoting benefits of sexual intercourse. By strengthening the emotional bond between spouses, regular sexual intercourse has been shown to reduce the risk for heart attack by up to 50% in some studies. A new UK study adds to those findings revealing that only heterosexual intercourse - not homosexual sex or self abuse - has significant stress-reducing effects, as measured by blood pressure responses to stressful situations. The research conducted by Dr. Stuart Brody from Paisley University is summed up by its title: "Blood pressure reactivity to stress is better for people who...

In a powerful personal story, NOVA interviews a 19-year-old Kenyan woman who suffers from AIDS. Her parents have died, and she is raising her four brothers and sisters as well as a nephew. Like many teenage girls in Africa, she is a victim of predatory sexual behavior by an older male, through whom she contracted HIV. Funding cuts in family planning assistance from the United States are putting many young women at risk for unwanted pregnancies, HIV infection, and illegal backstreet abortions.

Shaded by a grove of mopane trees, the village cemetery was strewn with fresh graves, most filled by victims of Africa's Aids epidemic who never reached the age of 30.Fanny Mbewe knelt in silent prayer beside her husband's unmarked resting place.   Fanny Mbewe [right] was forced to submit to ritual ‘cleansing’ Anyone who wonders why Aids has spread faster in Africa than anywhere else in the world needs only to consider her experience.With millions of other women, Mrs Mbewe fell victim to a tradition known as "kulowakufa" which dictates that any woman whose husband dies must submit to sex...

Abortions and drug abuse once again have been linked, according to a study co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and reported by Christian Wire Service. Drug abuse is three times more common during a subsequent pregnancy among women who have had abortions in the past than among those who have never ended a pregnancy. However, there is no evidence of the trend among women who experienced miscarriages or stillbirths. Research suggests that subsequent pregnancies may cause women to experience unresolved grief about past abortions. To mask such feelings, these...

"Oral Sex Prevalent Among Teens," announced Friday's Washington Post. "A federal survey finds more than half of 15- to 19-year-olds have had oral sex," said the subhead in the Los Angeles Times. "Sex Survey Shocker; Concern as most American teens have had oral sex," cried the Boston Herald. Across the United States—and beyond it—any newspaper that didn't focus on lesbianism in the sex survey (released last week by the National Center for Health Statistics) declared a crisis of oral sex among teens. Experts and journalists, unwilling to express plain old moral dismay at the idea of their kids doing the...