Posted on 08/12/2003 9:17:08 PM PDT by scripter
(AgapePress) - Researchers are warning of an HIV outbreak on college campuses in North Carolina.
A study conducted by the University of North Carolina and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services indicates that up to 60 college students in the state may have become infected with the virus that causes AIDS. The study found that 25 male college students in a three-county region of North Carolina have been diagnosed with HIV since 2001, and nearly 90% of those students were black men whose infections resulted from homosexual sex.
Lead researcher Dr. Lisa Hightow, a fellow in infectious diseases at the UNC School of Medicine, says half of all new HIV infections occur in young people.
"We feel that this is a wakeup call to the fact that HIV is still being actively transmitted and that it's involving our young people in our state. We feel that this is certainly statewide, but not necessarily limited to the state," she says.
According to Hightow, up until this year, no reports on HIV infection rates at colleges had been published. The researcher says she and her colleagues are consulting with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and have been working to improve prevention efforts.
"We alerted all the key health department personnel as well as all the campuses, and have started to expand our counseling and testing activities on the campuses," Hightow says. "Many of the colleges and universities that we have been working with have begun to increase student awareness of HIV."
Hightow notes that many of the students in North Carolina who were recently infected with HIV had used the drug Ecstasy and met their homosexual partners over the Internet.
At the beginning of last year, the CDC reported approximately 362,827 persons in the United States living with AIDS. Of these, 42% were whites, 37% were blacks, 20% were Hispanics, less than 1% were Asians and Pacific Islanders, and less than 1% were American Indians and Alaskan Natives. Of the 282,250 men (13 years or older) living with AIDS, 57% were men who had homosexual sex, 24% were intravenous drug users, and 9% were exposed through heterosexual contact. Of the 76,696 adult and adolescent women with AIDS, 59% were exposed through heterosexual contact and 38% were exposed through intravenous drug use. And according to the CDC, at the end of 2001 there were 3,817 children living with AIDS in America.*
MAGAZINE DESK | August 3, 2003, Sunday
Double Lives On The Down Low
By Benoit Denizet-Lewis (NYT) 7969 words
Late Edition - Final , Section 6 , Page 28 , Column 1
DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 7969 WORDS
- In its upper stories, the Flex bathhouse in Cleveland feels like a squash club for backslapping businessmen. There's a large gym with free weights and exercise machines on the third floor. In the common area, on the main floor, men in towels lounge on couches and watch CNN on big-screen...
And so, there it is. In the absence of a rational argument I figured it was only a matter of time until you resorted to ad hominem
I am highly offended by your comments saying I would raise my children believing free sex is inherent. You don't know me. I am a Christian and raised my family with Christian values - yet - that does not stop the dangers of our society rife with destruction of morals.
If you say so. However, you were the one using a bombastic turn of phrase aimed at me and my children. I ignored the marginal ad hominem and responded as to why I wasn't worried. You are the one that stated that you would be worried. My response was merely an extension based on the logical conclusion to your remarks.
Any person that would make your comment above is not worth discussing anything with. How many people have you hurt with comments like that? Of course, your rationalization is - "well, it will make them wake up and change their behavior".
More ad hominem, no comment necessary. I would only add that I don't need you to put words in my mouth.
You - sir - do not know how many parents out there are losing children due to HIV+ thriving in our society. You chose to think let them die off - I am not involved. Great - you are one of the blessed ones. Many are not blessed and I will never - ever - say anything like they deserve to die. Maybe some blatant unresponsible selfish people do - but while they are being blatant, unresponsible and selfish, they are infecting other people in our society.
Once again, the point whizzes by your head, missed completely. I grant (and granted) that any is too many. However, the point you keep missing is that a disproportionately large amount of time and effort is being spent on the problem. I'm not even talking about self-inflicted maladies. I'm just talking about the amount of time and effort spent on dealing with a problem that affects a miniscule portion of the population while completely under-funding and under-working issues much more pressing to the general population. The reasons are obvious. Homosexuals are a built-in constituency for the left. Spending huge amounts of time and money on HIV research results in the same loyal voting block as spending huge amounts of money on welfare. My assertion is that one is no better than the other.
No matter what you people claim - AIDS does spread and you are creating a false sense of security with your ill-informed, naive belief that all heterosexuals are safe and only gays get the disease and they deserve it.
Scare mongering, no more, no less. The chances of monogamous heterosexuals contracting AIDS is statistically less than being struck by lightening in NC. Moreover, you have twisted the entire discussion into little more than gay-baiting. I never said they deserve it, that's your inference, not my implication.
Now - one more time - how long do you think you will need to get the gay society to quit having sex whether you like it or not? How long before there are no more teenagers getting pregnant? How long before there are no more hormone raging, stupid, naive, sexually confused teenagers dealing with problems they are not equipped to handle (or any equipped to handle) and getting infected with HIV? Of course all of these teenagers make sure their parents do not find out what is really going on.
How long? Just as soon as people like you start facing up to the fact that political correctness and diversity cannot co-exist with social responsibility and morality. Just as soon as people like you stop finding it acceptable for the state to interfere with us when we teach our children values that say homosexuality and sexual promiscuity is wrong and deviant and we won't tolerate it. Just as soon as people like you stop ignoring the root cause of the problem and start concentrating on finding a real solution. Just a clue for you, that solution isn't needle exchange programs and handing out condoms to thirteen-year-olds.
Because I see the truth that my entire life I have heard of unwed mothers, generation after generation, I understand that people have not listened to others telling them to abstain when in the heat of the moment and because telling gays to abstain from homosexual interests when they find no interest in heterosexual relationships is proving very unsuccessful - I am portrayed as raising a family believing they can and should practice all of the above.
Not stated and not implied. This is pure hyperbole. You almost make me weep. Almost
Are you telling me no other parent sees the above events? Just because I see history does not mean I change my value system and teach what history has shown does happen.
I don't know how I could comment on this because you have bloated the "above" events completely out of reason.
A parent can talk until they are blue in the face and yet - their daughter may come up pregnant. Most people understand this - apparently you chose to live a very sheltered life unaware of what is out there in life.
Talking until one is blue in the face is only pointless if one is saying the wrong things. The Dr. Spock generation has made a specialty of saying the wrong thigs, repeatedly, to their children. My daughter is 20 years old, unmarried, and celibate for all I know. She knows and has stated to me on several occasions that there is plenty of time for all that hormonal jumping around and that a few minutes of fun isn't worth ruining her life. I can't tell you how satisfying I find those statements from her.
I hope that you do not have to face the day your teenager comes and tells you they are HIV+.
I have no teenagers and they all managed to make it out of puberty without getting any STDs. I put it down to a good, solid upbringing and smart kids. But they aren't exactly unique, you know. And that, my friend, is the entire point of this thread.
Don't bother answering this post.
Too late. :)
One of the greatest setups anyone has ever lobbed up to the plate but I'll have to let it pass in the interest of not being banned.
You screwed up on your first point. Nobody is entitled to health care. If you want it, you can find a physician who is willing to treat you on the promise that you will pay for the services. If you believe that other people have some obligation to dip into their pockets to pay for your medical services, then you are an immoral dolt and a thief. Don't catch anything you can't afford to treat on your own nickel.
The problem is, there is no cure. However, with medical care (HAART), HIV+ people can walk around and live a reasonably fulfilling life - while infecting other people. So, do we quarantine them for life?
The parallels between HIV and leprosy seem significant.
It's great to have a straight man in the crowd. That was my point. It is an incurable, transmissible disease. The only way to manage it is by permanent quarantine until there is a way to cure it. Leper colonies provided a suitable approach for leprosy. We have drugs to treat Mycobacterium leprae today. We don't need leper colonies anymore. HIV/AIDS colonies should be considered. Let them be economic islands apart from the healthy population. They can be productive without being free to travel around and infect healthy people.
I thought it might have been, but I didn't find it on a quick search.
I agree with you completely, that they should be considered. The fact that in today's cultural and political environment they cannot be is testament to the degree to which we've let liberal sensitivity overwhelm the common good.
I never said that. What I said was that statistically, the chances of monogamous, heterosexual, non-IV-drug users becoming infected was less than those of being struck by lightening in NC. Big difference. It makes the correlation to lifestyle inescapable.
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