conciliator wrote:

When dealing with bare faced liars like Alex one has to present them
with facts and not simply anecdotes.

From the article in the UK (quoted in full below) I quote the key facts:

"In 2002, 3,305 new cases of heterosexual transmission of HIV were
recorded. This is almost twice the 1,691 new diagnoses involving gay men
made in the same year. Since 1999 there has been an over three-fold
increase in the number of heterosexual cases diagnosed each year."


================================================== ======
http://www.aidsmap.com/news/newsdisp...sp?newsId=2433

HIV prevalence increases by 20% in UK in one year

Michael Carter

Almost 50,000 have been diagnosed with HIV in the UK, according to a
report published in advance of World AIDS Day by the UK Health
Protection Agency (HPA).

By September 2002, 49,500 people had been diagnosed HIV-positive in the
UK, with 5,711 new HIV diagnoses in 2002 representing a 20% increase in
total HIV prevalence, according to the report Renewing the focus: HIV
and other sexually transmitted infections in the United Kingdom in 2002.

To help combat the spread of HIV the HPA is calling for new health
promotion campaigns targeted at gay men, and is recommending that gay
men have an annual HIV test and that migrants to the UK be offered
voluntary HIV testing and counselling.

Factors driving the increase are said by the HPA to include a possible
rise in the number of new cases of HIV transmission between gay men, and
continued migration of HIV-infected men and women from sub-Saharan
Africa. An increase was also recorded by the HPA in the number of
heterosexual cases of HIV acquired in the UK.

In 2002, 3,305 new cases of heterosexual transmission of HIV were
recorded. This is almost twice the 1,691 new diagnoses involving gay men
made in the same year. Since 1999 there has been an over three-fold
increase in the number of heterosexual cases diagnosed each year. The
HPA also points out that there appears to have been a steady, if slight,
increase in the number of cases in gay men since 1999 (approximately
1,350 new cases a year to 1,650 new cases annually).

Women bore the brunt of heterosexually acquired HIV cases in 2002,
accounting for 66% of all instances of heterosexual transmission (1,993
of 3,152). Since 1999 the majority of heterosexually acquired HIV cases
detected in the UK were acquired in South Eastern Africa, particularly
Zimbabwe, but public health officials have also detected an increasing
number of cases acquired in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia.

Of the 1,850 cases of HIV transmission which occurred in the UK in 2002,
the overwhelming majority involved gay men. The annual incidence rate
for gay men attending sexual health services was 3%. However there were
275 cases of heterosexual transmission in the UK, an increase of 128 on
1998. Almost all these cases involved sexual contact with an individual
from a region with HIV high prevalence.

The success of HAART and the growing number of new cases of HIV
transmission has meant that there has been a 101% increase in demand for
HIV care since 1997. In 2002, 31,861 people received HIV care in the UK.

Demand for HIV care is heaviest in London, where 54% (17,000) of
individuals receiving HIV care in 2002 lived. However, the HPA also
recorded significant increases in demand for HIV services in areas
bordering London.

New infections amongst injecting drug users remained steady in 2002, but
the HPA noted that in individuals who had started injecting in the
previous three years, the prevalence of hepatitis C virus was 14%.

Approximately a third of people with HIV in the UK are unaware that they
have the infection, including 24% of HIV-positive gay men (an estimated
5,500 individuals) and 38% of heterosexual Africans (9,400 people).

Amongst the measures proposed by the HPA to slow the spread of HIV are
annual HIV tests for gay men, syphilis testing for all HIV-positive gay
men, the availability of voluntary HIV testing and counselling for
migrants to the UK, further research into the sexual behaviour of
Africans living in the UK, and reduced waiting times for sexual health
services.

The HPA also notes an increase in bacterial and viral sexually
transmitted infections, particularly amongst young people and gay men.

Jordan wrote:

Even that doesn't work. He'll just be back with the same tired
arguments all over again, not having learned one single iota.

In alt.config, we call this SRF (Skull Resistance Factor). Alex's is
about 40.

B/

While it may be easy to target migrants to the UK for purposes
of testing for AIDS, I would be hard pressed to believe that the UK
would
be able to identify gay men for testing purposes. And even if the UK
government could round them up and test every gay man, what are they
going
to do then? There is no cure. Drugs costs thousands of dollars. We
don't
hang people anymore regardless of the crime. It costs thousands of
dollars to
put people in jail. With no sanction of condoms in prisons, mind and
body
altering drugs are available in most underground networks in prisons, it
has the
potential of spreading AIDS at a faster rate than is current happening
in the prison
systems.

And why would prostitutes and drug users and heterosexuals who
participate in
a variety of drug and sexual activities that put other people at risk
not be included
in the hunt!

AIDS tests probably cost a lot of money and time and energy of an
already over-worked
and under financed global health system. Why test hundreds or
thousands
homosexuals when only a fraction those will be found to be HIV positive
and of those
many may already be in treatment or medical care.

Exactly my thought. Everyone is at risk, men, women and ultimately
children. Since sex
and drug use isn't limited to colour or race, everyone is at risk.

But, sadly it is never about testing. If one gets a positive test, it
is way too late to do anything but
give them drugs, expensive drugs. It is all about prevention. When
young girls are 15, you don't want them getting pregnant, or possibly
even having sex at that age. Testing for pregnancy is never the answer
for all 15 year old women/girls. It is away too late if they test
positive for pregnancy. The key is education, same as AIDS.


like is not relevant. Like polio,
other STD's and diseases in general, good education of everyone is
important. The ones that miss the education
are the most likely to fall ill or have health problems.

Thank you. Yes, it is a global health concern. It is not a women's
concern,
a gay man's concern, or a African's concern or a Latin man's concern.
Everybody
who is having sex is at risk and that is everybody and even if some
people aren't
having sex, they know lots of younger and older people, loved ones who
may be
having sex, so it is everybody's concern.


many
homosexual men have sex with heterosexuals or heterosexual identified
men and
women, so it is not as cut and dried as you would like to believe. The
medical
community see this and they are well aware that when it comes to sex,
there
are lies, lies, lies, and sexual encounters of all descriptions and
classes of people.

support
diversity to the extent that they welcome and support gay or homosexuals
within
their community setting. As such, most homosexuals live as close to a
major city or within
a major city limited by desire and economics as possible where a broad
spectrum of facilities,
employment opportunities and cultural diversity exists.

This is not a problem with respect to spreading the disease if every
individual receives an
education that one must use protection at all times, because sex today
will not show positive
for AIDS for a period of time and so there is no way of telling the risk
to AIDS from recent encounters
that their partner may have had. Again education protects. Testing
positive means somebody didn't get
the education or ignored it and took a risk.

First off, if it was possible to determine if someone was a homosexual,
historically homosexuals
would have been arrested, lined up and shot. However, unless one is
caught in a homosexual act,
it is virtually impossible to arrest or test all homosexuals, not even
close. And what about bisexuals
who are married to women and pay or have boys(young men) on the side for
what the wife can't or doesn't want to do)

STs have been around since the time of the oldest most famous
musicians! And it is still pandemic. What does that tell you?

I am not sure how you prevent the spread of AIDS by testing. Syphilis,
of course,
is become drug resistant as never before and more and more difficult to
cure. So regardless
of sexuality, syphilis is a problem.

You also don't want to drive sexually active people underground. Once
the word gets out that
a government is going to round up homosexuals and test them, those 18,
19, 20 - 50 and over boys
are going to go underground, not to clubs, not to bars. It will happen
very discretely as it was
done in the 30s, 40s and a history long before.


This would seem reasonable. Young people while they look and act
innocent to the rest of the
world are busy having sex. Young homosexuals have little or no sex
because of their age and living
conditions and risk of exposure and discrimination. Once they leave
their parents or are driven out of their
hometown and discover sex, they usually, as anyone would expect, make up
for lost time, like a sailor
who arrives in port after a long absence at sea. Some do it safely and
others do not. Same as sailors some took protection because they had
wives at home and some didn't take protection and brought disease to
their spouses or were treated by the time they got home if it was a
curable STD. Some like herpes are not curable, of course.

occupant wrote:



It makes sense to spend the limited resources available on "targeted"
education campaigns aimed at the highest known risk groups.

In the context of the UK the HIV infection statistics indicate that
these high risk groups are gays, "people of African origin" and sexually
active (white) Brits who have either lived in Africa or recently
travelled there as a tourist.

The mistake was made in earlier times by spreading the resouces too thin
on the ground in areas where there is a very low risk instead of
focussing on the high risk areas.

We know that knowingly having unprotected sex after having tested HIV
positive is widely being considered a criminal act especially if the
partner becomes infected as a result. I suggest that this be taken one
step further as we know that many of the high risk people refuse to have
a test and culpability be extended to those who indulge in high risk
activity and refuse to be tested. This will remove the current defence
of "I did not know I was HIV+".

Jordan wrote:

In any case, this is a disease which justifies drastic measures. Just leave
it, and it will go exponential on you. Obviously the sensible way to stop
it is by prevention, but human beings are not sensible, so a basic
requirement for the effectiveness of that approach is severely flawed. If a
drastic measure is *effective*, it's almost justified simply by that fact.

Maybe compulsory testing would be expensive or an invasion of rights or ...
In comparison to the risk of having a third of your population wiped out by
the disease, those concerns don't seem to weigh much. That's what happens.
It starts out at a low rate, a not-alarming rate. Then it rapidly doubles
till the unknown turn in the s-curve, and it's too late.

We're still waiting for that next big flu epidemic to come crashing down on
our complacent, placid shores. What might happen when that one comes to
wipe us out in our millions is that those with AIDS will be killed off at a
higher rate than the rest (but also more easily become infected, and
therefore, transmitters of the flu). Pretty horrible cure. And they say
it's a matter of *when*, not if it happens.

--

Slow Eddy

Jordan wrote:
Yes, it does. And how do you do that? Do you know where these HIV
high
risk people are 24/7/365? Where to do these people work, play, have
sex?
Tell me how you identify them (find them) educate them?

When you say white Brits, are you saying white gays Brits, white people
of African origin or
are you saying Black, Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Arab, and Jewish Brits
are never homosexual and as
such are a low risk group? Explain yourself.

No question that AIDS was thought to be a homosexual disease that no
heterosexual could catch.
Sadly, it took Africa, and now most of the world, to prove that it isn't
who you are but what you
do and with whom and how, unsafely, that will put man and woman at risk
for contracting AIDS
anywhere on the planet, including Britain.

Yes, it most parts of the world, it is and I suspect in Britain, it is,
too. That is why
no one on the planet would want to get tested, because if they do, they
can be charged and since
there is no cure, and they can lose their job, medical insurance
coverage, rental apartment, family,
friends, and everything they have materially and by way of human
contact, only a fool would say test me
first or at all - especially in view your attitude and comments.

Well, here again, partners will not become infected if they practice
safe sex. Many, many, many a heterosexual males have brought home to
the good wife STDS of minor and major consequence. Many, many, many
a man have avoided sex with their wives until the regime of antibiotics
have been taken and they no longer pose a risk to spreading an STD to
their partner. Herpes and AIDS are in a different league.



You see, it is the same problem that society had with women getting
pregnant. Blame the woman. No, no,
every man every time can wear condom and should - no exception.

If every man assumes that every women or man he has sex with is HIV
positive he would, of course, wear a condom and that is the end of it.

You want to life in a perfect world where you say that every women and
man who is HIV positive will know they are and say they are and you will
stay far away from them and treat them as lepers. The rest of society
you will treat as HIV negative, regardless of whom they had sex with 20
minutes prior to having sex with you, and you don't have to wear a
condom because she is on the pill and disease free or if it is a guy he
is HIV negative because he is a bisexual and not a homosexual or he says
he is a heterosexual - but he is lying to you.

And a bit more reality.
While it is true that an HIV positive person can pass it on to their
partner, let us pause to define partner.
One minute we are saying a homosexual has 1,000 partners a year. So how
does this guy or the medical community deal with education, testing, and
criminally charging (and presenting evidence and getting a conviction) a
homosexual with a thousand partners. And of the thousand partners how
many may already have been HIV positive for weeks, months, or years?

Don't get me wrong, I am not against the world trying to beat this
disease or get it under control, but
that doesn't seem to be your objective and if it is, it would appear to
have major problems.

There are as many variations of so called sexual encounters both in the
heterosexual community as in the homosexual community and the mix of
both.

In modern society in North America, and I suspect most of the western
world, the cost of keeping people in jail is very high, feeding the
increasing numbers of poor, the elderly and the sick, not to mention
looking
after society as a whole, is very, very, expensive and testing and
jailing is not the answer.

In fact, I commented in a previous post and that is the part you
snipped. Like society, you are free to see the world as you want, and
snip out what you don't want, but that doesn't' mean you have 20-20
vision.

"occupant" <electronicmailfixtosend@telust.net> wrote in message
news:4070C878.5917D50B@telust.net...
Maybe start looking for guys with handbags and limp wrists!


<rest snipped>

SO MINORITIES HAVE 150 TO 200 MORE SEX THAN CAUCASIANS. IT MAKES NO SENSE
WHATSOEVER.

HIV Testing Among Racial/Ethnic Minorities --- United States, 1999

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome (AIDS) in the United States disproportionately affect
racial/ethnic minority populations, particularly blacks and Hispanics (1).
Of the 774,467 AIDS cases reported to CDC during June 1981--December 2000
(2), blacks and Hispanics accounted for 56% of cases, although they
represented 25% of the U.S. population during this period. In 2000, the
incidence of adult and adolescent AIDS cases per 100,000 population was
74.2 for blacks, 30.4 for Hispanics, and 7.9 for whites (2). HIV
counseling and testing services potentially can reduce the risk for
infection with HIV and provide referrals to HIV-infected persons for
medical care. An estimated 300,000 HIV-infected persons in the United
States may be unaware of their HIV serostatus (3). In 2001, CDC introduced
the Serostatus Approach to Fighting the Epidemic (SAFE) (3), which focuses
on increasing the number of high-risk and infected persons who know their
serostatus and helps infected persons receive and maintain appropriate
medical care and reduce their risk for transmitting infection. CDC
analyzed data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to
determine the rate at which racial/ethnic minorities are getting tested
for HIV. This report describes the result of the analysis, which indicates
that minority populations are being tested for HIV infection at a high
rate; however, a substantial number of persons at risk for HIV have not
been tested. Prevention programs should continue to develop innovative
methods for counseling and testing at-risk persons.



http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5047a3.htm

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 22:50:54 -0400, "PaulKing"
<aimulti@aimultimedia.com> wrote:

You're right. It doesn't make sense to put it that way. It's just a
kind of stupid trick to keep your head firmly plugged into your ass.

Sexuality and sexual activity are human traits. It's something lots of
mammals and animals and even plants have. Sexuality is fun, life
affirming, marvelous experience sometimes. Sometimes it's just a
chore. Sometimes it's a way to earn some money.

Sex happens. It happens locally, within communities. Then a virus
comes in that is transmitted sexually. Patterns of the spread of the
virus reflect patterns of spread among and between communities. The
patterns reflect both cultural and ethnic barriers between communities
that are porous. A gay man may be any ethnicity. A bisexual man may be
any ethnicity. A needle-using individual injecting coke, speed or
heroin may be any ethnicity. Ethnicities can segregate to a certain
degree, but there are overlaps.

The spread thus reflects where the virus gets its initial foothold. It
spreads from there through these "openings" into other communities. We
create and self-impose these barriers. In many cases, white people
living in suburban mall environments are somewhat more insular and
less exposed to other communities. This may be true in some north
African muslim communities. It doesn't mean they're immune...just that
it may take more time for the virus to spread.

But no amount of discussion or thought will change your mind, Paul.
You're a fool who has just watched a staunch advocate of your idiocy
die of AIDS caused by HIV. And you need to manage your guilt by
blocking it from your mind and heart.

I hope you find healing.

George M. Carter

occupant wrote:

Even an amateur marketing type would be able to identify the best means
to reach these groups as a whole. You choose to see problems where they
do not exist.



It is quite clear ... except for those who just will not hear.




No you missed the point. What happened was that there was a lot of time,
effort and resources wasted. In N Ireland for instance their have only
ever been 275 documented infections. Now take the money being spent in N
Ireland and spend it on the gay or African immigrant communities in
London. You get it now?





Thats good for the individual concerned but what of his unsuspecting
partners?

We have the precedents already with how we deal with infectious diseases
so why are we dithering on this one?



Yes that is why extraordinary measures to control its spread are required.




Every man should know his status.



Most men don't care. They need to be made to care.




Don't be silly please. For example there are just far too many HIV
people in many African environments to try the ludicrous option of
separating them out from society at large (like that model of human
rights and democracy Cuba apparently did).




Would it not be more accurate to say that a very small minority of gay
men have 1,000 partners a year? How do you expect to be taken seriously
when you can't control your urge to ... exaggerate?


But you are not prepared to inconvenience the gay community. Sounds like
the palava over the closing of the bath houses in San Francisco back then.



Exactly, and no doubt some variations are more 'safe' than others.



Who suggested jailing anyone other than those who indulge in unsafe sex
when they are HIV infected. Then the math works a bit better in favour
of jail against the cost of infecting other people. And of course when
they are all in jail together they will fuck each other to death in no
time at all.


Does that also apply to you?

conciliator wrote:
One problem, the number of homoexuals with limp wrists and hangbags is
very, very small. The rest that appear like everyone else are in the
millions.