Posted on 02/03/2007 6:48:43 PM PST by FairOpinion
Four men in King County have been diagnosed with a strain of HIV that is extremely hard to treat, and health officials are concerned it could spread further.
At least two types of HIV drugs don't work against the strain, and another type has limited effectiveness, officials from Public Health — Seattle & King County said Thursday.
"It's conceivable there can be more infections, and the gay community is at highest risk," said Dr. Bob Wood, the HIV/AIDS program director for Public Health.
All the men were diagnosed with the strain as soon as they tested positive for the virus — unlike other HIV patients who develop drug resistance over time, often from taking medications inconsistently, Wood said. But there is no evidence the strain is rapidly spreading.
The four known cases were found over the course of more than a year. These were the only such cases reported in the state.
Wood said all of the infected men are gay and have had multiple partners, most anonymous. They also used methamphetamine, which tends to increase sexual activity.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Those are only the ones the MSM care to report about. You apparently are not aware that there is a whole cult of gay men who take pride in their HIV status and are thrilled to pass it along. Please don't be so naive.
BS.
Then show me where in the world people with HIV are being quarantined in camps.
You can't.
its not the sex, its the meth that is spreading this disease...SPREAD THE WORD.....
It would be if the gay, drug using community didn't have so much control of the public coffers to force the rest of us to subsidize their lifestyles.
HIV however, can be spread by one drop of blood to an open cut.....IMO of course, and I could be wrong...
And what's the difference between these two for the person who is subsequently infected? I'd humbly suggest that "almost nothing" is the word you're looking for.
Knowingly spreading it is a criminal offense.
What is your definition of "knowingly"? Now that these 4 men know that they have this strain, should they subsequently have sex with someone and infect that person are they "knowingly" spreading it?
Do you propose quarantining EVERYBODY who is HIV positive, even if they are not actively going around deliberately infecting others?
Yeah, but AIDS is not spread like those other diseases. You don't want to catch it? Don't engage in risky behavior. It's that simple.
Other airborne pathogens are a different story.
Here is an example of where several lives could have been saved. Locking him up afterwards doesn't help his victims.
HIV: Criminal Intent
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/0448/041201_news_hiv.php
Anthony Whitfield was recently convicted in Olympia in one of the nation's worst HIV assault cases. But his prosecution raises serious questions about who is being charged with spreading the AIDS virus and reveals the problems of trying to police private behavior for the public good.
Almost three weeks from now in Olympia, on Tuesday, Dec. 21, Anthony Whitfield, 32, will be sentenced on 17 counts of first-degree assault, the most for anyone in recent state history. His crime: having unprotected sex with 17 different women while knowing he was HIV-positive. Whitfield, an unemployed methamphetamine addict, spent the last several years bouncing around among girlfriends, marrying one, having children with two others, maintaining multiple "long-term" relationships, and having a slew of shorter ones. Though he was informed he was HIV-positive in 1992, he never told his partners, in some instances outright lied about his condition, and often refused to wear condoms. Five of the women have since tested positive for HIV, and one has AIDS. After a two-week trial before a Thurston County judge last month, Whitfield was found guilty on all assault counts.
From the article I linked in my post 91:
"In Seattle, where the bulk of HIV cases involve gay men, Public Health has issued just seven cease-and-desist orders related to dangerous HIV behavior in the last 10 years, reports Dr. Wood. His agency has never had to take the next step of incarcerating someone or transferring the case to law enforcement because he never heard of those individuals again; he suspects the subjects "either get smart, leave town, or become more clandestine." He can't recall coming across anyone in the Seattle area like Whitfield, who appeared to be the source for multiple HIV infections.
But that may speak more to the difficulty in tracing the labyrinthine paths of gay sex than it does to the actual existence of such perpetrators. As Wood points out, some gay men have so much anonymous sex that it's nearly impossible to track down any particular source of infection. "They don't even know the name [of their partners], let alone the address," he says. "Very few places in the country are able to get very far with gay male contacts." Since months or even years may pass before a person learns of their infection—during which time a gay man may have dozens or hundreds of sex partners—it becomes highly unlikely that they will know who infected them, let alone have any grounds for complaint.
The privacy rules and protections that govern HIV also make it hard to uncover who might be exposing whom. Wood notes that 70 percent of the gay men who get tested at King County clinics do so anonymously. They are only identified by name once they seek treatment. And their partners generally remain unknown to Public Health as well. Even if an HIV-positive man does provide the names of some prior sex partners, those records have to be destroyed, per Washington law, after 90 days. "That's an exceptional feature of the way HIV is handled," says Wood. "With all other STDs [sexually transmitted diseases], partner records are kept indefinitely." Once records are destroyed, obviously, it's impossible to discover if one particular name is showing up regularly on the partner lists of men who become infected."
HIV however, can be spread by one drop of blood to an open cut.....IMO of course, and I could be wrong...
So you think it's easier to get someone else's blood on an open cut on you, than to be coughed on in a crowded room, or supermarket, or train, or airplane? Getting coughed on sounds a lot easier to me. People cough in public all the time. I can't recall the last time I got someone else's blood on an open cut of mine.
Nobody is willing to do it. Instead, they throw endless piles of money at "research" in hopes that a cure will absolve them of responsibility for a lack of spine. The disease will keep spreading until an effort is made to corral the carriers.
Having anonymous gay sex with hundreds of other individuals is a lifestyle choice? Bare backing and bug chasing are lifestyle choices? That's a very sick and dangerous "lifestyle". I'm tired of seeing tons of money...much of it stolen from taxpayers...subsidizing the medical treatment of people who choose this deadly "lifestyle".
Didier: I had to look for a while before I found a way to get HIV. Then, finally, I got the “opportunity” I was hoping for. I read in one of the chat rooms for gays I used to check out that there was going to be a "conversion party" on the weekend. I told them I wanted to go and, after a few e-mails back and forth, I was given the green light.
We agreed to meet at a council flat in south London. The night was cold. The furniture in the flat had been rearranged in order to accommodate the crowd - fourteen muscular gay men in their mid- thirties. A flat screen television, which dominated the room, was playing porno movies. Drinks and snacks were set out in a big coffee table, just as in a regular party. Six frenzied hours of uninterrupted sex, drugs and alcohol. At the end of the night, the crowd began to slowly dwindle. Some left, a few fell asleep on a couch, the master bedroom, or any other suitable corner. But I was in the toilet. Even though the small tiled room was cold, I was sweating because of the cocktail of Ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana and vodka I had taken. As I looked at myself at the mirror, I knew that I had got what I had come for.
Two months later, the doctor in the Saint Mary’s Hospital told me I was HIV-positive.
We'll put it at both ends then.
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