Comments on: What percentage of young MSM have HIV?

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:25:02 +0000

Ann,
Thanks. I could have checked the article.
The CDC site’s back up so I was able to find better numbers.
If I were to behave like AFA’s OneNewsNow (ONN) and use only women (they quoted only the figure for me), I could proclaim:

In August of 2008 the Centers for Disease Control stated that heterosexual sex accounted for 80 percent of all HIV infections

But, of course, that would not be very admirable of honest of me.

By: jayhuck

jayhuck — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:37:17 +0000

My initial point was that it would have been great when I was a young person in high school or even junior high, to have a gay group – a place to go and be around others like myself instead of feeling afraid and like I was the only gay person in the whole school. Regina and PFOX don’t realize how beneficial such groups could be to kids. Instead, they – PFOX – would rather demonize it and use, as Warren said, exaggeration and hyperbole to drive home an agenda.

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:30:22 +0000

Does the Associated Press article dated 8/3 help clarify any of this? I can send the link again if needed. It is titled – CDC underestimated new HIV cases by 40%. It breaks down the statistics by age, gender, etc. catagories.

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:49:54 +0000

Warren,
Let me offer a couple observations.:

The ONN editors recently added a note pointing out the 71% figure from the CDC fact sheet.

I don’t think that is correct. Actually, ONN offered a different “statistic”:

In June of 2007 the Centers for Disease Control stated that homosexual sex accounted for 71 percent of all HIV infections. [emphasis mine]

They extrapolated the percentage of men contracting HIV through MSM to apply to women as well. The real number is about half of all HIV infections is by means of MSM (as you noted).
To give perspective, supposing that they were to use the figures for women and claim it represented all HIV cases. In that case, there would be NO transmission s via gay sex, but that about 2/3 are via heterosexual sex (the CDC site is down at the moment so I can’t give accurate numbers).
Also,
I think that your total population living with AIDS is perhaps not the best representation of what we are talking about. It only includes those who have been diagnosed with AIDS and not just those who are HIV infected. We estimate that larger population to be about one million in the US, up to a quarter of whom have not been tested (often in the minority heterosexual population).

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:36:33 +0000

Mary,

The J &Y study was only completed over a short period of time with a selected group of people. Holding it out as the end all and be all of change in sexual attraction change is hardly science or definitive proof since it’s scope was very limited. It is a good study but far from the complete study that is truly needed.

Quite true. But it's the best we have to go by so far. Warren,

I just completed a study of same-sex attracted males and the number who say they have changed dramatically over an average of 20 years of marriage is very small, lower than Jones and Yarhouse. The final numbers are not ready to be revealed yet, and the study was not a study of change per se, but we can make some inferences based on our survey.

I look forward to reading your observations Ann

I can also see how desperate one can get and how that can lead them to believe whatever brings them relief.

Wise words which apply to all sides of the current cultural divide and on almost any divisive issue.