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.*
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.
Your first post to me was a straw man and many of your posts to others have continued the same logical fallacy. You have nothing and you offer nothing to support your statements. After reading what I and others have said to you, it appears you are being disengenuous, you don't understand anything we've said to you or you're a disruptor.
Either take a break, take a hike, support your position or actually respond to what we say. Whatever you do:
Stop misrepresenting our position.
While not as completely innocent as babies, there are two other groups at high-risk for HIV that should also be kept in mind. A small but not inconsiderate portion of the men who acquire HIV through homosexual activity acquire it through rape, especially prison rape. This is one reason that the black male population is at such risk generally, because of the high percentage of black males that circulate through the prison system. Second, a large number of women generally and black women especially acquire HIV through heterosexual contact with men who claim to be heterosexual, even consider themselves heterosexual, but nonetheless have sex with men "on the down low". Some of these women are married to the men with "shadow lives". Both these categories of people should be considered borderline "innocents".
Please see post 82.
I work (for now) in the HIV prevention business. My company sells publications to the CDC and to CDC-funded organizations. A couple of weeks ago I was in Atlanta for the major national HIV prevention conference, sponsored by CDC.
While this particular program (Stop AIDS) is obviously idiotic, the CDC has actually taken a somewhat rightward turn (yes, they've still got a LONG way to go) and the "HIV prevention industry" is VERY angry with them right now.
In brief, this is because of a major upcoming policy change. The CDC is shifting a large chunk of their HIV prevention budget (about 40%, or a few hundred million dollars) away from trying to teach everyone in "at risk communities" (meaning mostly poor urban and rural areas with high populations of gays and blacks) to what they are calling "prevention for positives" (meaning HIV positive people).
This is the kind of shift that conservatives who follow the HIV prevention issue have wanted to see for a long time. IOW, stop acting like HIV is "everybody's problem", and focus on getting the people who have HIV to get tested so that they know they have it, and try to get them to stop spreading it.
What this means is that they're now trying to figure out how to get HIV+ people (who are living longer thanks to meds) to take the disease seriously again, and stop whoring around and spreading the disease. This means working with a lot of gays and trying to get them to, in public health language, stop "engaging in risk behaviors".
So, the downside is that you have more federal funds going to groups working with gays and trying to at least get them to act less like mosquitoes spreading West Nile Virus. But, on the upside, you have less federal funds going to groups teaching every Jill and Johnny in suburbia that "HIV is everyone's problem".
Your last sentence in this reply has been my argument for years, re wasting money on the scam re AIDS/HIV is everyone's problem. This was one of the biggest lies/scams put across in the last decade of the last century.
"On the upside, you have less federal funds going to groups teaching every Jill and Johnny in suburbia that "HIV is everyone's problem".
His name was mentioned. After all, he is 'far from being a homosexual'.
Why is it I hear your message or the overall message on this board as who cares - it is a gay problem and nature will take care of it for us. We do not need to waste money on AIDS?
I don't know. Are you hearing voices as nobody has said the above? Once again you are mispresenting what we've said.
Sorry, I offended your sensibilities.
You did no such thing. You have repeatedly misrepresented what I and others have said.
However, you are not seeing the other side of the AIDS/HIV problem in our society - our young unlistening, unexperienced teenagers floundering as they find their way in life. That changes everything. This "board" is ignoring the fact that AIDS touches many, many families who are not in support of the lifestyle.
I am doing no such thing. You might have a better idea of where I'm coming from if you actually read the links I pointed you to.
IMHO research needs to find out what causes gays in the first place (no cute, hateful comments please - I am not interested - I am serious) and research needs to find a cure for the devastation of AIDS to stop it in our society.
What causes gays in the first place? Do you mean what's the root cause behind homosexuality? Checkout the links I mentioned. Look under Genetics and you'll see environment is the major factor behind homosexuality. If you read the growing list on Homosexual Help you'll soon realize thousands have left the homosexual lifestyle.
As far as research for AIDS, you really should read posts 53 and 86.
Of course, gays should stop their activities but they don't listen to me - same as you people don't listen to me.
I can't speak for others but I'm reading everything you say and responding to what you actually say. Please respond in kind.
Your point is yet another concern. We can only report AIDS stats that we know and I would imagine the AIDS stats are much worse than what is actually reported. It's sad that many will not get tested and some that have tested positive remain silent.
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