There Never was a Heterosexual AIDS Pandemic Threat
by Big Dog on Jun 9, 2008 at 12:24 General
The World Health Organization (WHO) has accepted as truth that the threat of a heterosexual AIDS pandemic has disappeared. That was nice of them but there never was a threat of a pandemic. HIV and AIDS are transmitted, mostly, through high risk behavior such as IV drug use with shared needles, homosexual sex and sex with those who engage in high risks.
Certainly the possibility exists that monogamous heterosexuals can get the disease. this can happen through tainted blood transfusions and exposure to contaminated body fluids (as in health care workers). However, the risk of contracting AIDS has always been low for heterosexuals who do not engage in sexual activity with high risk partners. The risk of a heterosexual pandemic has never really existed. Yes, outbreaks can occur and heterosexuals can get AIDS but the likelihood of a pandemic was close to zero, or nonexistent.
The whole issue was suggested years ago when homosexuals were singled out as having high risk for the disease based upon their sexual practices. They complained about the suggestion that their lifestyle put them at higher risk and they believed that if AIDS were only recognized as a pandemic in their group (and those of other high risk behaviors) then research and funding for a cure would be minimal. By including the average every day heterosexual they were able, in their minds, to get research money directed toward curing the disease. This idea is ridiculous. We have not halted the research into the cure for lung cancer based on the fact that smokers are more likely to get it.
In all this time research money and time has been wasted looking for ways to stop a pandemic occurrence of heterosexual acquired AIDS when money and time would have been better if it had been focused on those most likely to get the disease. It took quite a bit of time for people to state the obvious.
The study still has unanswered questions:
But the factors driving HIV were still not fully understood, he said.
“The impact of HIV is so heterogeneous. In the US , the rate of infection among men in Washington DC is well over 100 times higher than in North Dakota, the region with the lowest rate. That is in one country. How do you explain such differences?” The Independent
I have certainly not looked at the data but off the top of my head I would have to say it is because Washington DC has a larger population of homosexuals and IV drug users than does North Dakota. There are not as many people engaging in high risk behavior in North Dakota as there are in DC. Washington is a bastion of liberalism and the “do what you want in life” mentality, so when coupled with the population demographics, it stands to reason that DC will have the higher rate. Also, the National Institute of Health is in DC and there are research hospitals as well so it also stands to reason that some of the population migrated to DC for [inclusion in] research, testing and treatment.
The waste of time and money over the years is attributable to a politically correct attitude that said we could not single out high risk groups. This makes as much sense as spending years researching the affects of sickle cell anemia in whites who do not come from [have ancestry in] Africa, South or Central America (especially Panama), Caribbean islands, Mediterranean countries (such as Turkey, Greece, and Italy), India, and Saudi Arabia. Since the disease affects mostly African Americans in the US it would be a waste of resources to do expansive research in whites. This is the same principle for AIDS research.
Once again, political correctness rears its ugly head…
Tags: AIDS, HIV, pandemic, political correctness, research, world health organization
Political correctness? Same in principle? You’re ignorant. Just a little over two decades ago, people didn’t know what the heck was going on. People just ASSumed it was a “gay plague”. They didn’t actually KNOW, thus saying “there was never a heterosexual aids pandemic” in hindsight is a little more than convenient. Thanks goodness people DID find out to know that specific behaviors which, fyi is not “homosexual sex”, (as if that means only one thing) were problematic in regards to HIV. What makes you so confident that monies and energies were wasted, when you can only speak in hindsight, is a mystery to me. Perhaps the AIDS campaigns DID help to curb a pandemic in the heterosexual population outside Africa.
No, Me.
It is not hindsight. I have said it for years because for years we knew what high risk behavior was and heterosexual sex non high risk individuals was not a problem.
People did not assume it was a gay plague, they were well aware that it was appearing in the gay community at a much greater rate than in the straight community. It was a pandemic for the gay community.
Early on health professionals were describing the risky behaviors linked to HIV because they were seeing it in certain population at a higher rate.
I do not buy the argument that the money and time probably prevented the pandemic in heterosexuals. They were never a high risk group unless they had sex with high risk individuals. The money would have been better spent on the most at risk populations.
Your refusal to “buy” that argument is based on an erroneous premise. But the truth is that they *were* and still are having sex with high risk individuals. For one that mocks political correctness, you sure seem to assume a reality of sexual purism, where people only have sex with those of their natural orientation. If the logic says that a man who has sex with men is a high risk population, by the same logic, a woman who has sex with a man who has sex with men is high risk – following that, a man who has sex with a woman who has sex with a man who has sex with men….and so on. Let’s not forget other groups singled out as high risk. The actual problem and reason for higher numbers of infection in certain populations is complex. Much too complex for me to “buy” that the statement “there was never a heterosexual aids pandemic threat” is not one made in hindsight. Reality is not always a predictable as some would like to think.
Me, I am not as naive as you would think. I understand that there are heterosexuals having sex with high risk people. The fact is EVERY homosexual male is having sex with a high risk person and the rate of infection among homosexuals is quite high especially when compared to heterosexuals who make up a large portion of the population.
The fact is, while many heterosexuals have more than one partner very few, as a percentage of the total population, have sex with high risk. This is evident by the lower infection rate. Sure, there are those who have sex with IV drug users and those who have sex as you described as well as those in the porn industry but they are a very small minority. As opposed to the homosexual male population where 100% of those who are engaged in sex are engaging in high risk behavior.
I never said that people were not, just not in a high enough number to equal a pandemic. Sure, heterosexuals get the disease and some with no sexual contact (blood transfusions and exposure to body fluid). There is a difference between some people getting exposed and a pandemic. We knew there would be no pandemic a long time ago.
Being a health care professional I happen to see more than a few cases and very few people I cannot remember seeing a patient with the disease who was not engaged in high risk behavior. There might have been one or two but most were either homosexual, IV drug users or prostitutes.
So, does it happen, sure but not as often and not in numbers sufficient to be a pandemic.
Ah yes, those impeccable powers of clairvoyance allowed you to know. Ignoring the fact that your partners’ partners (whether sexual or IV drug related) are your partners too, is naive. You again seem to want to believe in a mythical physically obvious divide between the high risk and the not. Sorry but you can’t tell by looking or even asking your partner. Assuming that you can know the sexual orientations of the population is perhaps the most absurd part of this whole discussion, next to the idea that this isn’t stated in hindsight.
The issue here is ONE
How can a VIRUS (HIV) that supposedly causes “AIDS” have the ability to discriminate according to race & sexual orientation?
A virus does not work like this, it will not respect these social boundaries.
AIDS has been exposed here and the science behind it as well. This is a political construct. Many have said this all along only to be vilified by everyone.
Now the WHO admits they lied and that those who always said that this was all a political construct are being proved right.
NO heterosexual AIDS is the same a saying there is no AIDS, well not of the kind caused by an HIV virus at least, which incidentally has never even been proven to exist.
And those HIV tests that detect nothing and everything. There is still no test to detect HIV with!! Look on the test kit box and you will see it written there.
This is a call from the top brass of the AIDS industry to jump ship, and right on the hot heels of this news comes the first to step down:
Head of UN’s AIDS program Piot to step down.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10391233.htm
AIDS IS OVER.
Ms last blog post..AIDS Titanic Sinks Even More- Top Brass Jumping Ship-AIDS Scam Nears End
If your partners partners did not engage in high risk then neither did you. I do not have that worry but others certainly will because of lifestyles.
I knew for years that it would not be a pandemic. The information was there. It is a matter of seeing it scientifically rather than emotionally or with political motivation.
You can call it what you wish but it appears from this article, I was correct.
“If” being the operative word. No, it appears from the article that the reason HIV seems to be confined to areas is still a mystery. The conclusion that “there was never a heterosexual aids pandemic threat” isn’t even the rational end of reading this article. It’s actually a red-herring. You can go on thinking you were operating with actual scientific knowledge even though prior to the rapid spread of hiv in some males, this knowledge did not exist. But I’ll entertain this no more.
BTW, I can say that at least you admit that lifestyles, not groups (as if they are necessarily the same) is the problem.
Lifestyles are people’s choices and some of them have consequences. I could have gotten the disease because I am a health care worker. That line of work is what I chose. People who are homosexual choose that lifestyle as do IV drug users.
I don’t think AIDS is here to wipe out gays or that they deserve it, no one does. It is just a fact that the rapid transmission in males happened in males having sex with other males and that was known early on.
I am only saying that PC caused an uproar when it was obvious that there would be no pandemic among certain groups. The article says it is a mystery as to why some places are higher than others. No mystery to me, look at demographics of the population.
We always think our assumption are “obvious”. Excuse me while I take this story’s point of view over your assessment of it.
The story does not have a point of view. It says they don’t know why there is a difference between DC and some rural state. DC is full of homosexuals, prostitutes and IV drug users. That is why the rate is higher. That and some of the research facilities are there.
It was obvious to a lot of people. AIDS was called a gay disease early on for a reason, it affected mostly gays. I am not saying they deserved it, just that they got it and that is where it first showed up.
Yes, having friends in the research and being in health care it was obvious to me. It is also true though, we allow our choices to cloud rational thinking. Gay people refused to see that this was a disease that affected them more than anyone else. They refused to believe that their lifestyle was leading to it. The assumption that the lifestyle was normal or perfectly OK was shaken by the fact that a disease was killing people who lived the lifestyle..
Let us just agree to disagree. As I said, no one deserves it and now maybe they can find why it affects gay men more than anyone else.
I said “point of view”, not opinion. Did you skip over the part where the comparison between the UK and Africa were made, noting similar behaviors, yet different effects of the disease? Well I did, in case you didn’t.
Funny that you speak of political correctness, yet your last post, more than any you’ve made thus far, shows very clearly your own bias. The very fact that you think that gay men of the 80’s were refusing to “own” (so to speak) this disease out of defiance or pride (ignoring for a second that it IS a blood borne disease), should make you think for a moment but I know it doesn’t. Even if it’s true of those men, did it ever cross your mind why they would feel the need to? Gee, could it have something to do with the widespread pandemic among heterosexuals (particularly of the Christian stripe) known as homophobia and their penchant for spreading venom about “normalcy”, “sin” and the like? Yes, let’s talk about lifestyles alright – the lifestyle of anti-gay bigotry. I wouldn’t doubt that if that old fashioned Christian “love” and warped sense of “family values” connects to issue of prostitution and drug use as well. Yes, disowning the “undesirables”, kicking them out on the streets is a favorite Christian past-time in the U.S of A. Then of course, once the leppers are fully down and out, they can again show their love with food shelter and the “gospel” to help to turn away from their sinful life. But let me stop. It’s not PC to portray Christian dogma’s on society and culture as anything put pure.
Also, in case you didn’t know, LESBIANS, according the stats that include sexual orientation, are the least effected by the disease EVERYWHERE. What conclusions or assumptions shall we reach about the “normalcy” or behavioral attributes of that “lifestyle”?
What are the demographics in the UK and Africa?
I don’t have a bigotry. I happen to believe homosexuality is abnormal but that does not mean homosexuals should be treated inhumanely. The disease is transmitted via exposure to contaminated body fluid including blood. It is also transmitted via saliva and semen. The colon has a lot of blood vessels and anal sex tears tissue allowing entry of the virus from an infected person’s semen.
The reality is, there is no homosexual pandemic and yes, homosexual men were reluctant to see this as a disease that affected mostly gay men (and still does).
The fact that lesbians contract the disease less does not negate the fact that the behavior is not normal. Sex is designed for procreation and two humans of the same sex cannot procreate.
The behavior is still abnormal, IMHO.
I don’t have the demographics. You can look that up yourself. It’s irrelevant anyway since, as the article says, the behaviors are similar, yet the effect of the disease is different. You can arrive at two conclusions from that. Either you can accept that you can’t explain it. Or you can descend into a claim asserting that people are getting the disease because of who they are, nevermind outside circumstances. And that, whether you like it or not, is at worst bigotry (no different that saying that people asked for it) or just lazy thinking at best. I’m fully aware how the virus is transmitted – thanks to research that NOW allows us to know that. BTW, saliva is not realistically a mode of transmission.
On the the lesbian comment, uh excuse me, but it is you (not me) that is implying that this disease is somehow a reflection of the goodness or badness of people’s sexual behavior, but more specifically, whether the object of one’s sexual affection is a socially approved one or not. That is YOUR logic. I’m just showing it to you. That fact that lesbians get the disease less means EVERYTHING according to that logic.
Certainly the demographics matter if it involves high risk behavior, my contention all along.
I also have not contended that it was “goodness” or “badness” of behavior that reflects the disease. I only stated that it was high risk behavior and it is. Smoking is a high risk behavior for lung cancer. The behavior might be bad for you but doing it does not make you a bad person. Having anal sex might be bad for you but the people who engage in it can be good people or bad just as with any other group.
Saliva is a rare form of transmission but the virus lives in it and can transfer to an open pathway. Say an drunk person with AIDS scratches the cop who arrests him and then spits on him and it gets in the would. Unlikely, but possible.
Once again, I never (unless you can show it) implies the disease was a result of good or bad, only a result of high risk. As I stated, there are many high risk behaviors. Jumping out of airplanes is high risk but it is not a bad behavior simply because someone can die from it.
I might deem, as a personal matter, that homosexual behavior is bad or abnormal (as opposed to saying the people are bad), but I do not believe that is why homosexual males get the disease. That would be indicating that the disease has moral judgment and it does not. Sickle cell anemia affects only a specific group of people but that does not mean they are bad because they got it.
There is a difference between saying a behavior is bad for a person and saying the person is bad. I know some gay men and lesbian women and they are all great people.
That’s great, but just know that the tone you are NOW taking is much different than the one you had in the blog entry itself. That condescending tone about the bastion of liberalism and doing whatever you want, is the attitude that I’ve been responding to up until now. If that wasn’t moralizing this issue, I don’t know what you’d call it. All that does it provoke one to do the same in return. You can say that the political correctness of not singling out a group led to irresponsibility but I can just as easily say that singling people out in a such a manner that would call this a gay disease (as did happen) rather than a disease that is mostly affecting gay men, but also capable of affecting others (and yes, there is a difference in the two, one of objective fact and emotion) is just as likely to produce irresponsibility – irresponsibility like I don’t know, societal prejudice (that you even acknowledge yourself, albeit flippantly) bitterness, nihilism, etc. This is what’s amazing to me. Even after speculating that had gay men not found a way to skirt pass society’s homophobia, they would not have likely gotten ANY help, you conclude that things would have been better for them if they had done things differently. Of course preferably in a way that wouldn’t ruin heteros feeling of invincibility. Shame on them.
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Daniel