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Loading ...CDC: New HIV infections up among men who have sex with men
09.11.2008 2:52pm EDT
(Washington) Data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control show an alarming increase in the incidence of new cases of HIV. The HIV incidence surveillance system allows the CDC to estimate the number of new HIV infections occurring each year in the United States.
The statistics, from 2006, released Thursday break down earlier figures into “subpopulation groups”.Of the new HIV infections among males, 53 percent were in men who have sex with men (MSM).
Among this group, 46 percent were white, 35 percent were black, and 19 percent were Hispanic.
When age was examined among MSM aged 13-29 years, the number of new HIV infections in blacks (5,220) was 1.6 times the number in whites (3,330) and 2.3 times the number in Hispanics (2,300).
In MSM of all races, blacks and Hispanics were represented disproportionately in 2006 among those with new HIV infections.
The new figures also show a higher HIV rate among women of color - 14.7 times the rate for whites.
The new incidence data will help guide local, state, and national intervention measures tailored to those populations at greatest risk for HIV infection, the CDC said.
The CDC said that the ability to distinguish recent from long-standing HIV infection using a serologic testing algorithm for recent HIV seroconversion enabled the development of the new national HIV incidence surveillance system and integration with the established national HIV/AIDS reporting system.
Incidence was calculated for the 22 states included in the analysis and extrapolated to the 50 states and the District of Columbia by applying the ratio of HIV incidence to AIDS in the 22 states to those states without incidence data. Percentages and rates were based on extrapolated data, the CDC said.
What can I say but I am more than just dissappointed, I’m frustrated and just a little angry too. I lived through the 70’s and 80’s and remember all too well the ‘holocaust’ that devasted our community. In 2008, that the CDC would publish this finding about men (gay, bi or closeted) is just too much. I know I will come off as cruel but what message, what fundraiser, what literature, what commercial, what pamphlet, what education did these men miss. In 2008 there can no excuse or rationale for what clearly seems to be immature and frankly, selfish behaviour. As I said, I am probably coming off as cruel but after 47 funerals throughout the late 70’s and 80’s, I just can’t bring myself to imagine why? why would you take the chance? why would you be so reckless? why would you believe that just because we can prolong life and treat the ‘condition’, it’s a free for all?
Well two things we know for sure:
1) the religious right will say this shows gay and bisexual men are still reckless, and 2) it will be harder to argue the point.
Sad……truly, in every respect of the word, sad.
Dear Jon(the intended pun is the only thing funny about this note.) I agree, that living through the epidemic of not only AIDS but also the funerals of so many friends brought home the danger to a few of those that lived through those terrible times. Times in which our government abandoned us because the disease was “killing all the right people” as Julia Sugarbaker’s friend so eloquently informed the television audience. As a gay man who lived through those times, I am wondering if one of the reasons that we are seeing an increase of such proportions is based on the fact that the younger generation of gay men has not attended the funerals of their friends and lovers. We have to remember that a tenet of youth is “it can’t happen to me because I am invulnerable” and even though we know that it is not true we have to keep screaming the message that YOU CAN DIE for want of a condom. Recently, I had the experience of being asked, in a group situation, about my old gay friends. I had to explain that my oldest gay friend was only 48 because all my other gay friends that I had known in college or before were dead as a result of the “gay plague” which knows no false boundaries such as orientation. The sooner we can remove that old saw from the lexicon the more people we can convince that they are at risk also. I can only say that for a gay man to take the chances they take with bare backing and drug use has to be a willingness to gamble with their very lives. More pamphlets, more tv ads, bigger posters, in more places, and with scarier pictures and then do it all over again and again and again and again, ad infinitum.
I’m 21 years old, and unfortunately I can attest to the fact that many gay men my age do not regard AIDS as the threat to our community that it so blatantly is, and has been. It’s true that we have not experienced the personal loss and sadness of losing loved ones and dear friends to AIDS, and because of that many young people choose to engage in risky sexual behaviors like barebacking.
I’ve been lucky to have found works like “Angels in America” while I’m relatively young. And after reading such powerful stories I can’t imagine trading my life for a few minutes of condom-less fun. It is a difficult thing to soldier on after hearing these discouraging numbers, but we must so that education and prevention become more widespread, and the dying become fewer.
I agree with the points that Jon and Vanndean said.
And A.M. Fancey brings up a good point as well, that the younger generation doesn’t view this as “their” disease. Many view it as an “old gay man’s” sickness or that it can be managed by a pill.
There’s also this phenomenon of “gift giving” and bare-backing. Larry Kramer said it best when he says that if you have sex without a condom, you are basically committing murder. And “we as gay men are murdering each other in the bedroom, sex-clubs, sex-parties, and bath-houses.”
You can play, just wrap it up.
I had high hopes that my fellow gay “brothers” would learn something from these many deaths in the 70s and 80s and currently in countries around the world too poor to afford expensive AIDS meds and would seize the opportunity and would be anxious to wipe this dread disease out for once and for all at least in the USA.
I consider it a precious gift that I have lived up to 55 years without an incureble problem and I want to live long into my 80s and 90s. There is so much to see and to do in life, so many new things coming along, why miss out on long life?
I have one thing to say to A.M. Fancey, even although I don’t know you, live long, dear friend, you are just starting on a wonderful journey with your life ahead of you with so much promise, with so much to see and to do, so much choice in careers, in travel, in wonderful and caring friends and much more, maybe the chance for a partner in life who will love you true and want to share life with you for many years to come. Be safe and be happy, please use a condom and please live long. Younger gay man like you are the future of our BLBT community that has in its hands the chance to be always vibrant and enduring and to be there for other future young gay men and women, or it can be sadly gone the way of the wind, the choice lies with the younger GLBT men and women out there to protect themselves and the ones they love and to keep our community going. We are connected to one another and it can be beautiful and it can be good.
Jon,I have for years been a part of a gay-welcoming church concerned about social justice and about those less fortunate than ourselves in this church and I credit the “religious left” if you will with helping me to stay oh track away from a life of drugs, of heavy booze, of tobacco and away from unprotected sex. My church and my age of 55, my family and my friends help me to remember how precious life is and I want to be around for them and for myself for many more years.
Everyone here and please spread the word, Just one more thought, what happens when and if these magic and very expensive anti-HIV pills etc that may prolong life for years but cannot prevent infecting others eventually fail one after another prompting a frantic search for the med that will keep the HIV/AIDS at bay a while longer? Why be on “borrowed time”? Why not just use freshly bought condoms and save some of this anguish and worry? And maybe consider the joy of a lovely partner who wants to love you true far into old age?
I remember well a Swiss ad I saw in that land some years ago that said in German to use a condom as you don’t know for sure if your friend has been untrue to you. And I saw one here in the USA in a gay restaurant that said in English and Spanish, “even if he is an angel, use a condom”. This is not about mistrust of the man you love, it is about being you and him (or her) around to enjoy life together for many more years.