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."
Oh let em have their fun. Surely there'll be a cure soon. {wink wink nudge nudge}
Jeez, it's almost as if the wages of sin is death.
Why...you're right!
It's almost like...God is not mocked.
And the whole whine appears to be "we're rich, but not rich enough"...to buy our way out of wrong behavior?
reminder: AIDS is a voluntary disease.
NEWSFLASH: Stop engaging in homosexual activity.
That's not true for very many diseases, but it is for AIDS. Yet they refuse to take the step to make it happen. So many lives could be saved, but these selfish people don't care.
Given that the new cohort is meth shooters aging may not be as much of a problem as the numbers suggest.
I might agree (cf. also the comments of others about the wages of sin), but only if you keep them out of my health insurance rating pool.
Covering HIV treatments for the sexually wanton makes the rest of us pay monetarily for techonologically delaying the wages of sin for them. While aiding the sick is a Christian duty, being forced to do so through increased insurance premiums is neither Christian (it deprives one of the opportunity to willingly give charitiy in imitation of our Father who 'makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust', and deprives the recipient of contact with the Gospel when a Christian ministers to him) nor good social policy.
Despite all the advances in drugs, 'the boys' continue to party, and only after they're positive do they realize, "Oh, hey, actions have consequences. Who'd a thunk!?"
I'm one of those hard hearted broads, I guess. I've lost too many friends to the disease (each contracted through irresponsibility and an almost arrogant disregard for cause and effect) to care any more.
You pays yer buck you takes your chances.
This story's gonna leave a lot of readers with a bad taste in their mouth.
That reminds me of a similar idea. The bible says "if anyone will not work, then neither shall he eat". Now if we try to undo that whole rule with welfare, look at all the bad consequences we get. We have a population that won't work, has tons of free time on their hands, gets even more money for even more kids born as bastards. We end up destroying a whole group of people in their own sin by leading them to the temptation of not working.
Homosexuals are hardly "gay"
If we don't quit allowing the progressives to redfine our language to their own perverted definitions our children will never know what the meaning the word "IS" is.
Carolyn
But it's not a "gay" disease, after all...
Come on everybody, we've got quilting to do.
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