The Shocking Second HIV Epidemic Among U.S. Gay Men

[Comrade Crapski]

The Shocking Second HIV Epidemic Among U.S. Gay Men That No One Is Talking About




Some LGBT rights groups today are focused on topics that make for an easier sell to the rest of society than HIV/AIDS.


August 15, 2012 |











pop quiz, no cheating allowed: if you had to guess, would you say that HIV and AIDS rates among gay men in the United States are A) declining, B) remaining stable, or C) rising?

The correct answer is C) rising, at an alarming 8% per year . HIV incidence -- that is, the proportion of a population infected -- among gay men in the United States rises by that amount every year since at least 2001. Overall, this incidence, at 15.4% cumulatively, is just slightly lower than the incidence among gay men in Sub -Saharan Africa . And there’s a good case to be made that the real numbers are actually higher; for instance, we know they’re higher in some major metropolitan areas, where the incidence among MSM (men who have sex with men) is oneinfive. In San Francisco, it may be ashighasoneinfour.

Overall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that between 400,000 and 500,000 gaymen in the United States carried the virus in 2009, the most recent year for which data are available. Chillingly, gay and bisexual men are the only demographic to experienceariseinHIVinfection rates.

These are astonishing facts. The AIDS epidemic is now over three decades old and has taken over 600,000 lives in the U.S. alone. That’s more casualties than were seen in the entire Civil War. It’s also noteworthy that new infections in the U.S. are numerically stable overall, at roughly 50,000 a year over the last decade or so -- a number seemingly impervious to public or private prevention efforts.

Considering the carnage AIDS has inflicted on gay men in particular, it’s urgent that we examine what, if anything, can be done to save lives and to prevent the widespread damage of another generation -- today’s young men. The fewer than 1% of Americans who are gay or bisexual men between the ages of 13 and 29 comprise 27% of new infections.

TIMEHealthland describes the stakes in stark terms:


Public health experts have been concerned about the rising rates among MSM for years now, viewing the current epidemic as the second wave — the first having occurred in the 1980s. Today’s infections, they say, are affecting a new generation of men who didn’t live through the initial devastation of AIDS’ early days, when there were no drug treatments and a diagnosis was a death sentence. Public health messages about safe sex practices and testing targeted to gay men have waned in the intervening years, and now, some experts say, a new generation of at-risk men have to be educated about the disease.

There is no single reason why HIV rates have been rising again among gay men for at least a decade, or one tool that could hinder the process. The best we can do is identify contributing factors (with limited hard data), consider approaches to reach vulnerable demographics and help change behaviors.

Effective HIV therapy has been around since 1996, in the form of HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) drugs. These drugs reduced mortality rates, previously near 100%, by 50% to 80%, and gave HIV patients a new lease on life.

An unintended side effect was that the drugs also reduced the visibility of the disease within the gay community. The “gay ghettos” of large cities were no longer the sole mournful province of the walking dead. The sense of urgency around the epidemic began to fade, while indicatorsofunprotectedsex, specifically the incidence of other sexually transmitted diseases, began to rise.

cont:

http://www.alternet.org/activism/sho...-talking-about

[pr_capone]

We all laugh and joke about it but AIDS is a helluva disease. I look forward to the day when it is wiped out completely.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by pr_capone

We all laugh and joke about it but AIDS is a helluva disease. I look forward to the day when it is wiped out completely.

Not likely with so much money being made in it's present form.

[dmahurin]

Originally Posted by pr_capone

We all laugh and joke about it but AIDS is a helluva disease. I look forward to the day when it is wiped out completely.

And cocaine is a helluva drug.

[KILLER_CLOWN]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

Not likely with so much money being made in it's present form.

There you have it, in a nutshell.

[BigMeatballDave]

Originally Posted by pr_capone

We all laugh and joke about it but AIDS is a helluva disease. I look forward to the day when it is wiped out completely.

People are stupid.

This is why these types of diseases spread like they do.

[qabbaan]

So in many places the HIV infection rate among gays may be one in four.

What is the rate among the straight population?

Treating Aids is of course very expensive. I wonder if the government, which increasingly feels it should be able to regulate how much salt or sugar you have in you diet, what size soda you can buy - I wonder if the same government will try to regulate what these people put in their mouths in the name of "we pay for health care so it's our business"...?

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by qabbaan

So in many places the HIV infection rate among gays may be one in four.

What is the rate among the straight population?

Treating Aids is of course very expensive. I wonder if the government, which increasingly feels it should be able to regulate how much salt or sugar you have in you diet, what size soda you can buy - I wonder if the same government will try to regulate what these people put in their mouths in the name of "we pay for health care so it's our business"...?

The difference is that in terms of food, in most cases, one party is intentionally and deliberately putting things in other people's mouths and people don't realize how bad it is for them.

Not to be gross or graphic, but if a guy with AIDS was purposefully passing AIDS to somebody else, that is a crime.

It's one thing to regulate behavior. It's another for businesses to exploit addictive tendencies for profit, and do so in a way that it exerts a massive collective cost on society. I think it's absolutely laughable that the same people who defend our right to eat poison are the same ones who want to keep costs down for everyone. It is an absolute fact that the fatter everyone gets, the more my health care costs go up.

[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by Dave

People are stupid.

This is why these types of diseases spread like they do.

I get what you are trying to say but that is a pretty big generalization for the cause and continuing propagation of the disease. Not everyone that gets it did so because of a conscious decision on their part.

I would venture to say that a significant number of people who contract/die of it were people who were affected by other's bad decisions. ie, wife gets AIDS because husband cheats, tainted blood transfusions, or simply just trusting the wrong person (I think I'm in love and we are going to be together forever). I would also guess that there are a ridiculous number of people out there who have it and don't tell their sexual partners that they are infected before engaging in horizontal discourse.

[vailpass]

Bi-men that bring this plague to the hetero world need to be summarily executed. Literally.

[mikey23545]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

The difference is that in terms of food, in most cases, one party is intentionally and deliberately putting things in other people's mouths and people don't realize how bad it is for them.

Not to be gross or graphic, but if a guy with AIDS was purposefully passing AIDS to somebody else, that is a crime.

It's one thing to regulate behavior. It's another for businesses to exploit addictive tendencies for profit, and do so in a way that it exerts a massive collective cost on society. I think it's absolutely laughable that the same people who defend our right to eat poison are the same ones who want to keep costs down for everyone. It is an absolute fact that the fatter everyone gets, the more my health care costs go up.

If you don't like the price of your healthcare, quit using it.

This is a win-win situation all around. You won't have to bitch about your healthcare costs anymore, and since you'll probably die at a young age, the world will be rid of another self-centered, dictatorial control freak.

[chiefzilla1501]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

If you don't like the price of your healthcare, quit using it.

This is a win-win situation all around. You won't have to bitch about your healthcare costs anymore, and since you'll probably die at a young age, the world will be rid of another self-centered, dictatorial control freak.

I'm not even rallying around dictating to people what they should eat. I have and always will be for better education and forcing companies to be far more transparent about what they are putting into their food.

But by all means, let's stick our heads in the sand and pretend that controlling health care costs isn't a critical issue right now. I'm not even for Obamacare in the least. I just can't believe that conservatives have become so close-minded that they would rather sit idly back and watch diabetes and obesity become an EPIDEMIC if it meant that the government dare tell anyone what to do. I'm not even talking about telling people what to do. I'm talking about telling Big Food what they're allowed to sell and advertise.

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

If you don't like the price of your healthcare, quit using it.

Absolutely ****ing brilliant.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by vailpass

Bi-men that bring this plague to the hetero world need to be summarily executed. Literally.

AIDS will never be a major problem for hetero men. It's nearly impossible to pass from a woman to a man; way too hard for it to spread to any significant degree.

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by Saul Wickedson

AIDS will never be a major problem for hetero men. It's nearly impossible to pass from a woman to a man; way too hard for it to spread to any significant degree.

Huh, I didn't know that. IMHO it is bullshit for a closet gay man to give it to his unsuspecting female partner. Bad enough the guy has to suck dick now he brings home the bath house flu to his woman.