HIV Rate Up 12 Percent Among Young Gay Men

[Moloch]

The number of young homosexual men being newly diagnosed with HIV infection is rising by 12 percent a year, with the steepest upward trend in young black men, according to a new report.

The double-digit increase in young gay men is about 10 times higher than in the homosexual community overall, where the number of new infections is going up about 1.5 percent a year.

The report, released yesterday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, appears to confirm impressions that a "second-wave" AIDS epidemic is underway in gay America.

"These men represent a new generation that has not been personally affected by AIDS in the same way that their older peers were," said Richard Wolitski, acting director of HIV-AIDS prevention at CDC.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062603521.html?hpid=moreheadlines

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. This is so preventable, you know.

We know how it's transmitted. We know what to do to prevent transmission. We've known it for a very long time.

Morons will always find a way to kill themselves off. If young homosexual men are stupid enough to contract HIV, they deserve medical treatment, sure, but no sympathy.

[DCKit]

2. There is no education.

The religiously insane have won another round.

[Creideiki]

3. I agree on the no sympathy thing.

I also have no sympathy for people that have heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, colon cancer, West Nile, the common cold, flu or any other disease that we know how to prevent, whether it's lifestyle, diet, vaccination or bug spray. All the people who are sick in this country clearly deserve what they have coming to them. :sarcasm:

[IntravenousDemilo]

11. I keep forgetting you guys are in the United States and not in Canada.

Sometimes heart disease is congenital, whereas HIV/AIDS is definitely NOT something that is passed along from generation to generation to generation like a genetic mutation. Do you see the difference?

We don't know how to prevent breast cancer or we would be doing so. Name me one woman who has said, "Yes, I know what causes breast cancer, yes, I know what kinds of behaviours actively lead to breast cancer, and yes, I shall actively engage in those activities because I'm special and will never get breast cancer." Some women (and even some men) have a genetic predisposition for and family history of breast cancer, and it has nothing to do with anything they ever did -- they're just born that way. Likewise with heart defects and juvenile diabetes. Do you see the difference?

Some people do things to themselves, of course, like smoke, eschew exercise, and eat grossly unhealthy crap that they KNOW can lead to Type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart failure, strokes, colorectal cancers, and a host of other fatal or otherwise nasty ailments. They do indeed deserve what's coming to them, and they deserve the same sympathy from me that I'd give to people who know very well what constitutes high-risk activity and yet still manage to get themselves infected with HIV. You'll notice in my above post that I didn't say they don't deserve treatment. They do. They deserve the very best treatment available, and it should be free, too -- all health care should be free of charge in a civilized society. So, by the way, should all flu shots -- and there again, flu shots, the only possible method of prevention that we know of, sometimes work and sometimes don't, because the serum comes from LAST season's strain and it may or may not be effective against what's going around now. Remember the Spanish Influenza epidemic that killed millions (including my two-year-old uncle Leonard) around the end of the First World War? That was a very different kind of disease from AIDS, by virtue of its means of transmission. Do you see the difference?

We don't know how to prevent or cure the common cold either; all we can do is reduce the risk by being as careful as is reasonably possible, and alleviate the symptoms. But believe you me, at some point in your life you are going to catch a cold. Using the common cold as an analogy is silly because like flu, colds are airborne and can survive long periods outside the body. Cold viruses can enter your respiratory system on dust particles, for chrissakes. How can you prevent someone from sneezing or coughing on you on the bus or in an office building, or even in the street? How can you know that the telephone or keyboard or other surface you just touched or even just brushed up against isn't loaded with cold germs? But HIV is very very difficult to contract unless you're actually going out of your way to get it. Back when the disease was new to us and people didn't know how you caught it, yes, those people deserved sympathy, because if they had known how to prevent it, you better believe they would have. They didn't know where it came from or how to keep from getting it. People today do know these things. Do you see the difference?

There's an old saying, I think by Martin Luther, to the effect that you can't prevent the birds from flying over your head, but you CAN stop them from nesting in your hair. In other words, there are circumstances beyond your control, as contrasted with circumstances well within your control. Do you see the difference?

And don't even get me started on the disturbing, and thankfully small, group of people who DELIBERATELY seroconvert for whatever reason. Death-wish, I guess. I fully expect these idiots to cull themselves from the herd.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. thats bullshit. there are many things that go into this, all of which deserve sympathy

1. the catchword here is YOUNG. young people are hardly educated in sex in america. Let alone the risks of unprotected anal sex. \

2. young kids are taught to be ashamed of their gayness. studies prove that when men who are not identifying as gay but having sex with men, they are more likely to have unprotected sex. this is because even now gayness is associated wiht HIV, not unprotected sex. this is partly why i hate the ex-gay movement and other varieties of homophobes, it encourages younge people to hate themselves, thereby acting in ways that are self loathing and suicidal

3. people make mistakes. the price of that mistake should not be a deathly disease. just from the sheer unfairness of HIV, one should have sympathy for it.

[SacredCow]

7. Thanks Pri....

and I'll add #4. Some may be misled to think that they are in a committed relationship and therefore "safe."

edited for typo.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. good point.

[SacredCow]

9. One that I have experience with, unfortunately.....

:(

[Creideiki]

20. I lost a friend because of this

He was very young and naive and trusted his partner.

[IntravenousDemilo]

12. What, are young people today living under a fucking rock?

Back in the old days, you had to go to the library to get information on anything. Today, all you have to do is click your mouse, which shouldn't be a problem with tech-savvy kids. It's much much much MUCH easier to get information now.

Sure, people make mistakes, and they shouldn't pay for mistakes with their lives, which is why I say they should receive the latest and very best treatment. But my sympathy? No, I shall not waste my sympathy on the irresponsible. Whose fault is it that they had unprotected sex? Whose fault is it that they used a dirty needle to shoot up? Did someone hold a gun to their heads? I mean, yes, sometimes people get raped and infected, and yes, there could be a minuscule number of people who get jabbed by complete strangers with HIV-infected needles in large crowds, and sometimes healthcare professionals get pricked inadvertently by infected needles and sharps in the course of their work; these would be exceptional cases worthy of sympathy, but certainly they don't number enough to make the infection rate rise 12 per cent in a year.

Anyway, my sympathy isn't going to cure anybody's AIDS. My donations of time and money and effort might have an effect, though.

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. The problem is not that little information is available

The problem is telling kids that information is available, that they need to pay attention to it and that they need to internalize it to the point where it becomes habitual.

Consider that the steepest upward trend is among African-American youth. There are a lot of reasons why they are being hardest hit: the strong thread of conservative Christianity that is the backbone of many Black communities, high incidence of poverty, perception of gayness as a "white" thing and the prominent homophobia found in much of rap music. All of this leads many African-American men to reject anything that is "gay" or associated with the gay community, including information on HIV and safer sex practices. Add to that the reasons I gave in post #6 and you begin to see the problem. How do you get kids to seek out this information and make it regular practice?

Please, tell us.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. i am sorry but given how HIV is spreading in already subjugated minorities

i find your lack of sympathy to be highly upsetting

its like you have no knowledge of how other gay people who are not you and your friends live.

even if info is available, a lot of black HIV positive gay boys have told me that they always "knew" they were going to end up positive. there is a theory in psychology that you dont try to prepare for a disaster if you think its inevitable. the complete homophobia in these communities make young gay men believe that they cannot escape this fate. part of this rapid infection rate has to do with these fatalistic belief.

not having sympathy for impoverished gay person of color is nothing to be particularly proud of.

[MonkeyFunk]

26. Some may as well be living under a rock

I remember a few years ago having a discussion with a 20 year old gay kid. He asked me about how AIDS was spread. I was shocked at being asked the question - I asked him how he could not know.

He had gone to Catholic schools his whole life, and came from an Asian immigrant family where such things weren't discussed at all.


But even smart adult people make dumb mistakes. Most of them aren't deadly.

[Skittles]

31. young folk are notorious for taking chances

they always have been

[Chovexani]

32. Let's not forget #4, the culpability of Big Pharma

A lot of younger people didn't grow up with what we grew up with, in terms of watching people get fullblown AIDS within a matter of months of catching HIV and dying left and right. This generation has grown up with drug cocktails and those bullshit Big Pharma ads in gay media with poz guys rock climbing and shit, making it seem like HIV is little more than a cold and hey you can still live your life without any sort of inconvenience.

STI rates have skyrocketed among young people of all orientations, largely because of a distinct lack of frank sex education in this country (thanks Mr. Bush! :puke:). Because of this abstinence only bullshit kids are not being given the tools they need to protect themselves and their partners. In 2008 there are straight girls who think IUDs can protect them against STIs. It's just that the situation is much worse among LGBT youth because same-gender sex is not even part of the equation anywhere except in the greater LGBT community's education efforts, which sadly may not be reaching those who need it most due to homophobia, internalized and otherwise.

It's just so depressing how far we've regressed as a nation under 8 years of the Chimp.

[dsc]

5. In an ideal world, maybe

but here on planet earth, not so much. Even in an after school club I can't discuss condoms with my gay students. We can't discuss safer sex. We can't discuss any of it. This despite the fact that several of my students go to clubs all the time and do God knows what with God knows who. They know stuff to some extent but who knows what ridiculous theories they hear on the streets.

[TechBear_Seattle]

6. It is preventable, yes. But there is very little education in HOW to prevent it

There are a lot of issues at work here:

1. The prevalence of abstinence only "education" which refuses to discuss safer-sex measures.

2. The blinkered focus on heterosexual sex only.

3. The refusal to discuss anything other than penis/vaginal sex, much less present the STD risk of unprotected oral and anal sex.

4. The resurging culture of hate against people who identify as gay, leading many men who have sex with men to adamantly refuse to have anything to do with the gay community where most public education efforts are focused.

5. The disappearance of mentors caused by the older generation dying and by fear generated by right wing media insisting that any contact at all between a gay adult and youth is inherently predatory.

6. The lack of any direct experience with HIV disease. I came out in the early 80s and within ten years, a great many of my mentors and friends were dead. I watched them as they succumbed to one opportunistic infection after another; I sat with them when they were too weak to get out of bed; I attended and sometimes spoke at their funerals. One year, I went to six such funerals. That had a profound impact on my sexual behaviors which is why I'm still HIV negative. But nowadays, HIV is manageable and rarely fatal. For gay youth, just as for most youth, death is not a part of their world so they give it very little thought.

Who is going to teach these kids? What education efforts will get through to them? How can these lessons be ingrained to the point of habits?

If you have any suggestions, I know of four community service projects in Seattle alone who are desperate to chat with you.

[JackBeck]

10. New York is the epicenter for HIV/AIDS in the United States.

I still get asked whether or not HIV is airborne.

Whenever I do a transmission piece during my workshops, it's like opening a can of worms. Most people still harbor bigoted attitudes when it comes to HIV, which prevents them from embracing all the information that research has uncovered over the past 25 years.

We may know how HIV is transmitted, but most people don't.

The United States government still sends out educational materials throughout this country that state HIV can be transmitted through sweat and tears.

I refuse to blame any young person from not having the proper information, especially after the failed policies of "abstinence-only" education, the likes of "Dr." Bill Frist equivocating on Meet the Press when asked about how HIV is transmitted, and a Republican nominee running for POTUS in 2008 who believes that the verdict is still out on whether or not condoms can protect someone from getting infected with HIV.

[Zuiderelle]

16. No sympathy at all? Really? You've never been in the heat of the moment

and done something stupid when you were young? Or... think of it like getting lost in a bad neighborhood that you know you shouldn't have gone through but did, because it was a good shortcut, then breaking down and being descended upon by a gang and being brutally attacked? Or a woman who jogs in a park and forgets the time, and gets lost after dark and becomes the victim of rape? We shouldn't have sympathy for her because she knows the risk. Women all know the risk of being alone anywhere. For that matter, why should we have sympathy for a girl who has a little too much to drink and gets raped by her date?

To me, those are fair analogies.

Sure there are always stupid people, but there are also responsible ones who do one stupid thing, or don't even do a stupid thing, but happen to have a condom break... and they get HIV, or they get pregnant. The only people I have no sympathy for are the ones that know they have HIV and have unprotected sex with unknowing others.

I'm a little surprised that you feel no sympathy for any of these young men.

[Fran Kubelik]

17. I have a friend dying right now.

He's on a ventilator. I am praying and crying and waiting for the call.

I know you're a generally nice guy, but I have to say: Fuck you.

Fuck you and your ridiculous judgments. My friend is dying and you turn up your nose like that. Fuck you.

[closeupready]

18. Truly, thank you for saying that. I agree.

:hug:

[jonnyblitz]

23. wow, what a fucking asshole you turned out to be.

I wouldn't even know where to begin....

[terrya]

24. He may have said something that you vehemently disagree with.

And I guess I do too.

But he's my partner.

And I love him very much. No matter what.

It hurts me to read the comments directed to him in this thread.

So, I'm out of DU.

Have a good life.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. sorry terrya, that you are hurt. no one really wanted to hurt you.

but i think you know that had a straight person made that comment, you too would be calling for his TS'ing right now.

that being said, i am still sorry you were hurt.

[Fran Kubelik]

28. I am sorry, Terry.

It hurt me deeply to read what IntravenousDemilo wrote, since one of my best and longest friends is in such bad shape right now. I really really really don't want to hurt you. I reacted in anger and frustration. I am very sorry.

[terrya]

29. Hi, Fran.

I understand you were hurt, since you do have a dear friend who is in bad shape. I know that.

I know it's a bad analogy, but it would have been as if someone had posted "well, damn. Why don't those cancer patients learn how to ward off cancer" while my father was dying a horrible death from cancer. I would have been majorly pissed if someone had posted that. And I would have been very hurtful to have read that.

[closeupready]

14. Lot of good points in this thread.

Also, it seems dumb to say this, but I think people sometimes forget the obvious, that in a world without STD's such as AIDS, people would have sex without condoms because duh, it's how sex is supposed to be performed. And just as we know that smoking leads to all kinds of pathologies, people continue to smoke because they enjoy it. Well, a big difference between smoking and sex is that the act of sex is driven by biological instinct, i.e., a much stronger driver of human behavior, and so exercising control over that instinct (i.e., wrapping the penis in latex) is much more difficult. The good news is that studies have shown that education campaigns WORK. We need to refocus on educating young people about the need to be careful and have safer sex.

[FreeState]

19. Ooops

Posted in wrong window... sorry:)

[terrya]

21. Shit...I shouldn't have read this thread.

Not because of the OP.

[freestyle]

22. Our lives are still not valued.

Even though there have been many positive changes, the negative messages are still tragically prevalent. We have religious bigots essentially saying that GLBT people are not God's children, which really translates to telling us to go to hell. Then you have the same people, along with a few more working to deny our relationships any legal recognition. The message is that GLBT people are not needed or wanted by society as who we are. There will be some people who soak up the negativity and take it ot on themselves. They may not be immediately suicidal, but they don't make self care a priority either.

It is also not too complicated why young Black men would be especially hard hit. Between hearing that n*&#%$s ain't shit and threats of harm to gays, safe, affirming, space can be hard to come by. With no place to be, some choose not to be.

[xchrom]

25. this is why we need a vaccine --

when it comes to sex -- people will never come to 'risk aversion' standards 100% -- i don't care what group we're talking about.

it doesn't take much -- and the next thing you know the condom is forgotten.

condomless sex becomes valued for all kinds of reasons -- and we must never give up on risk reduction education -- and it has to happen in schools among peers -- because that's what works.

[TechBear_Seattle]

30. If you can participate in a vaccine study, please do so

I'm addressing the general audience, xchrom, not you in particular :hi:

A number of large cities have groups doing research into a HIV vaccine. In Seattle, such research is being done by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The researchers are almost always looking for volunteers willing to help out. I was one such volunteer a few years ago.

Basically, this is how it works. You go in for a screening, to make sure you fit the group needed. You will be asked a battery of questions about your personal behaviors, and given full disclosure as to the risks of the vaccine, how it works, etc. If accepted, a clinician will draw a lot of blood. Some of this blood will be tested to set a base line for comparison, some will be stored for later comparisons. After this, you will get a shot of the vaccine. Stome vaccines run in a series, like the hepatitis vaccine; those will require that you come in every few weeks. Typically, blood will be drawn before you receive the vaccine and then one or two weeks latter.

The study will almost certainly be "double blinded." This means that you will not know if you are receiving the vaccine or a placebo, nor will your clinician. When you arrive for a shot, she will pass an ID number to the lab, who will prepare the syringe; the lab never knows your name or who you are. The idea is to eliminate, as much as possible, a psychosomatic reaction caused by you knowing what you are getting, and to keep your clinician from letting slip what you are getting.

Vaccine studies come in different levels, each with their own sets of protocols and expectations. I was in a level 1 study. In level 1 studies, they are researching the efficacy of the vaccine: will it provoke the reaction they are expecting. I was one of the first human volunteers to get this particular vaccine, which used canary pox (which can infect human cells but not take them over; canary pox has been used safely for years in manufactured vaccines) to carry snips of HIV protein into the cells. The theory was to create a harmless HIV look-alike which would provoke antibody production, thereby granting immunity should the person be infected by real HIV. I was one of 90 people world-wide in the study, and when the study was unblinded, I learned I was one of 30 to actually receive the real vaccine (the other two groups of 30 recieved the unmodified canary pox, or a saline placebo.) Alas, while the primate studies were promising, the human immune reaction was not strong enough to continue this line of research.

If a vaccine reaches a level 2 study, researchers have found that the vaccine provokes the reaction they wanted. In level 2, they work with dosage: what is the minimum amount of the vaccine that provokes the desired reaction? The pool of subjects is larger and more diverse, around 200 to 300 people. This larger pool also allows them to look for possible side effects.

A very few HIV vaccines have reached level 3 studies. Now, the vaccine has been established to provoke the desired reaction in the immune system and a base dosage has been established. Level 3 studies address the most important question: does the vaccine work? There are thousands of volunteers, very diverse in race, gender and behaviors. Subjects commit not only for the course of vaccine injections but for some years afterwards, coming in to be tested and answering a battery of questions about behaviors and risks. So far, no HIV vaccine has passed out of a level 3 study and into general use.

The advantages for volunteering in an HIV study are considerable. You will typically be paid for your participation. You will get free HIV testing, possibly other STDs as well. There could be other health benefits as well: a routine urine dip-stick test revealed that I was in the early stages of diabetes, allowing me to change my habits and avoid the many problems caused by uncontrolled high blood sugar. And, most importantly, you will actually be doing something to help find a vaccine.

If you are interested in being a volunteer, see if any of the nearby universities have a training hospital or medical research facility, and contact them to find out if they are participating in any of the HIV research trials and are in need of volunteers. You will be glad you did.

[Q3JR4]

33. I've heard it said that

HIV is basically a young gay man's disease.

Most of them don't know any better and they don't know where to go to get tested.

I guy I knew recently died from complications from an HIV infection he didn't even know he had.

I now volunteer at an HIV education facility that provides free condoms, free testing, and information on how to clean any needles you're going to share.

Q3JR4.