The backs of heads of missing homosexuals.
Posted on 05/13/2002 4:18:52 AM PDT by Mom_Grandmother
A City Combats AIDS Complacency As Rates of Sexual Diseases Climb, San Francisco Preaches Risk to Gay Men
AIDS Special Report
by Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 12, 2002; Page A03
SAN FRANCISCO -- On the streets of the Castro district, news of funerals for gay men who had AIDS is scarce. Cafes are no longer filled with gaunt, sickly customers. And some days, when the city sends a van out to offer free tests for sexually transmitted diseases, it finds few takers. The worst of the plague has passed.
But health officials here say that as new drugs continue to tame, if not solve, the AIDS crisis, they are struggling with another predicament: More gay men are engaging in risky sex. Cases of venereal disease and HIV infection are soaring. And pleas for caution are being ignored.
All of which is why San Francisco, an epicenter of the national AIDS fight for two decades, is taking a desperate new step to persuade gay men to stay vigilant about their health. It has just begun offering them discounts all over town if they show proof they were checked this spring for sexually transmitted diseases.
Local sex clubs, which the city regulates, are waiving $15 cover charges for patrons who get tested. A leather store is knocking $5 off any purchase. A florist is offering free flowers. Coffeehouses are pouring complimentary drinks. Bookstores and restaurants are offering 15 percent discounts.
City officials hope the deals are too good to pass up -- because they say too many residents still at risk of getting AIDS have become too sanguine about it.
"There's much less fear," said Michael Siever, director of the Stonewall Project, a local advocacy group for gay men. "Even here, the disease isn't in your face anymore, so people aren't as careful. They're tired of getting tested and they're tired of hearing the same old campaigns to scare them about sex."
At its peak here a decade ago, more than 1,800 people with AIDS died annually. Last year, that figure was 218. The sharp decline is a profound relief, but San Francisco is still far from winning its long battle with the disease and others that can lead to it.
In fact, some of the troubles the city thought were over are returning. Cases of syphilis, a disease that significantly increases the risk of being infected with the AIDS virus, have quadrupled in the past three years. Cases of HIV infection, which causes AIDS, have doubled in the past five years.
The same trends are apparent in other cities with large numbers of gay men. Last year, a federal study concluded that young gay men across the country were contracting HIV at a rate not seen in more than a decade. Last week, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended for the first time that all gay and bisexual men be tested for HIV exposure at least once a year. Previously, the CDC had recommended screening only for patients with risky lifestyles.
Health officials say the new statistics reflect a striking change in mind-set among gay men: Many apparently are so confident now that HIV can be managed with the help of new drug treatments that they are taking fewer precautions to avoid becoming infected with it. Many also have no memory of the deadlier early days of the epidemic.
Only a few years ago here in the Castro, the heart of San Francisco's large gay community, it would have been almost impossible to hear a refrain now common in the neighborhood. "I don't know anyone who has died of AIDS," said Nick Lazarou, 33, as he sat outside a neighborhood cafe, "but I hear it happens."
Doug Weaver, another Castro resident, said that many gay men have grown complacent about AIDS and HIV infection. "I think people are sick of worrying and are just deciding to live it up a little bit," Weaver said. "They really have reached a saturation point with a lot of the negative messages about sex, and they don't bother as much with testing, because now they know there's a much better chance they are not going to feel as ill anymore."
San Francisco is rushing to change that attitude by changing its tactics. Last year, public health officials began accusing pharmaceutical companies of promoting AIDS drugs with misleading advertising messages that glamorized life on the treatments by showing vigorous men climbing mountains and riding bikes.
Health officials took action after a survey of local gay men showed that those who saw such ads often were more likely to have unsafe sex. The city is pressuring drug companies to change their ads at bus stops and on billboards and has threatened to ban them. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration also ordered companies promoting drug treatment for AIDS to tone down their advertising.
San Francisco's latest initiative is an attempt to entice gay men to be tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases. Those who show up for the free tests also will receive new warnings that HIV infection is a serious, chronic medical problem, not a minor ailment that drugs easily suppress or cure. Some AIDS drugs have serious side effects and pose health risks, and there are still unanswered questions about when and how often some should be taken.
City clinics and the health department's mobile van are giving gay men who get tested stamped cards to present to local businesses for an assortment of perks or freebies. The special offers are not exclusively for gay men; they are just the group that city officials are targeting most in their campaign.
"I don't know how effective this will be," said Larry Hanbrook, a city health worker who leads a gay community group called Castroguys. "But we've got to get people's attention, or things could get terrible again."
Since 1981, more than 1 million Americans have been infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and about 450,000 have died. About 323,000 people are living with AIDS, which significantly damages the immune system. The number of people reaching that stage of infection peaked in the mid-1990s.
Jeffrey Klausner, deputy director of San Francisco's health department, said that when the AIDS crisis was raging, most local gay men were tested every few months. Now, he said, surveys show that fewer gay men in the city are practicing safe sex and more are having sex with multiple partners.
"When you're burying one of your friends every few weeks, you're not thinking about having sex," he said. "But the landscape here has really changed."
So, too, have the consequences of unsafe sex. Klausner said that four years ago, reports of syphilis in the city were rare. This year, he is bracing for 400 new cases. In recent years, cases of rectal gonorrhea among local men have nearly doubled.
The news on HIV infection is worse. Health officials say that the city had more than 1,000 new cases last year. They also have an extraordinary new suspicion: that some men are hoping to get the disease because they trust drugs will keep them fit and they want to join the growing community coping with it.
"When a lot of obviously sick people were walking along the streets, it made quite a different impression on younger guys who had not tested positive," Hanbrook said. "The possible horrors of this have dropped off people's radar."
In the Castro these days, gay men say it is easier than it has been in decades to hide a sexually transmitted disease. Or to forget to ask sexual partners whether they have any illnesses. Or to stop wearing condoms.
"Everybody around here looks so good now," Lazarou said, "that nobody thinks they're going to catch anything bad."
They wouldn't be so 'confident' if they had to pay 20% without a cap for the drug cocktail like I have to pay for medical care in my PPO.
Brings to mind the tumbrels that used to creak down the streets during the Dark Ages. "Bring out yer dead!"
Or you could look at it as "Trolling for Perverts."
Ooooooo, colllld!
Bingo.
This is a perverse example of our screwed up medical system at work. Because they are not paying for the drugs, they don't bother trying to avoid the disease. How sick is that?
When you want to encourage something, subsidize it.
Doesn't seem fair.
AIDS AND HOMOSEXUALS
EVOLUTION IN ACTION
If any h-mo doesn't know the dangers of exposure to infected blood, he is a person seeking a slow, painfull death.
While smokers, drinkers, and fat-people are vilified as a burden on our health-care facilities, these people are pitied.
The media is full of them and portray them as victims... rather than tell the truth.
"Bingo. This is a perverse example of our screwed up medical system at work. Because they are not paying for the drugs, they don't bother trying to avoid the disease. How sick is that? When you want to encourage something, subsidize it."
Absolutely correct!!!!
The homosexual mafia, oops I meant advocacy groups, deceitfully made Medicare pay for all the costs of these drugs. That is to say, made you and I pay for their condom-free "lifestyle" out of money that we pay every week in taxes and which is supposed to provide care for us when we are frail and elderly.
Also your observation that these subsidies encourage gay behavior is dead on correct. Let's get all these 28 year old HIV creeps off welfare and Medicare. Put them to work cleaning toilets in nursing homes.
"Bingo. This is a perverse example of our screwed up medical system at work. Because they are not paying for the drugs, they don't bother trying to avoid the disease. How sick is that? When you want to encourage something, subsidize it."
Absolutely correct!!!!
The homosexual mafia, oops I meant advocacy groups, deceitfully made Medicare pay for all the costs of these drugs. That is to say, made you and I pay for their condom-free "lifestyle" out of money that we pay every week in taxes and which is supposed to provide care for us when we are frail and elderly.
Also your observation that these subsidies encourage gay behavior is dead on correct. Let's get all these 28 year old HIV creeps off welfare and Medicare. Put them to work cleaning toilets in nursing homes.
"Welcome Citizen Sodomite. Here is your condom. Remember, no more than 8 different partners in one day."
The backs of heads of missing homosexuals.
It's a chilling thought but a very realistic possibility these people don't want us to speak of.
They just can't have it both ways. Either their lifestyle is healthy acceptable behavior or it isn't. Regardless of whether they are homosexual, engaging in multiple partner sex without protection, is just plain stupid.
Since the beginning of time, there has been serious consequences for this type of immoral behavior. STDS are not "new" but they involve engaging in sex outside of marriage.
Unfortunately the word "sin" has gotten a bad rap. God knows that his children, having earthly tunnel vision, are not able to see what will bring them joy and what will bring them sorrow. He has handed down "guidelines" that if we follow them, will help us avoid the pitfalls on this earth that will cause us sorrow. When we choose to ignore these guidelines, we have committed a sin.
There may come a time, when God chooses to eradicate from this earth, people or places that choose to ignore these guidelines, in order to keep the rest of us safe. It could be a fire, economic disaster, disease, earthquake or war. No matter what it will be, San Fransisco is headed for a major disaster.
That's like taking $15 off the bar tab of alcoholics who can prove they don't have sclerosis of the liver -- yet.
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