and HIV is only one of the many blood-borne illnesses rampant in the homosexual community, BUT it’s the only one tested for by the US military.
Estimates of the proportion of men who engaged in same-sex behavior differed by recall period: past year = 2.6% (95%CI, 2.2-2.9); past five years = 4.0% (2.8-5.3); ever = 7.0% (4.7-9.2). Based upon the five-year recall period, we calculated an HIV diagnosis rate of 692/100,000 and a syphilis rate of 121/100,000 for MSM in 2007. For HIV and syphilis, respectively, the rate was 60 and 61 times the rate for other men and 54 and 93 times greater than the rate for women.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/resources/research/msm.htm
AIDS has been diagnosed for more than half a million MSM. Over 300,000 MSM with AIDS have died since the beginning of the epidemic.
MSM made up more than two thirds (68%) of all men living with HIV in 2005, even though only about 5% to 7% of men in the United States reported having sex with other men.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.htm