Is AIDS a gay disease?

I was told I was being hateful several times today and yesterday in several comments by one commenter. I guess posting "articles that report facts" is considered hateful.

I posted an article about the RED CROSS - The Title of Article was: "Student unions ban blood donation advertising posters... because they discriminate against gay men"

I posted excerpts from the article and the only thing I personally stated was this: "Yes this is for real... If you think you heard everything and can't be shocked - read this"

The article stated this was the reason that gays were not allowed to give blood:

"Mrs Olley, from Houghton-Le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, added : 'The blood service needs more people to donate blood. It wouldn't stop an entire group from donating without good reason.

'In order to assure the continued safety of the blood supply, we currently ask that those in groups shown to have a particularly high risk of carrying blood-borne viruses do not give blood.

'While safer sex through the use of condoms does reduce the transmission of infections, it cannot eliminate the risk altogether'." too see original post click here

The commenter on my blog so graciously informed me: "AIDS is not a gay disease. It is not 1986 anymore..."

I never stated that AIDS was a gay disease. The article never stated that AIDS was a gay disease.

However, That is an interesting question: Is AIDS a gay disease?

I will not attempt to answer that question and risk being accused of spreading "hate" speech. Read the articles below and decide for yourself.

I just researched the topic and found some very interesting articles that I quoted below. These articles were not written by me. Don't send me hate mail go to the original source - I am just trying to post information, you think about it and come to your own conclusions.

First I looked on the American Red Cross Site found at: http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/0,1082,0_557_,00.html

This is what they said about AIDS/HIV:

"HIV/ AIDS

You should not give blood if you have AIDS or have ever had a positive HIV test, or if you have done something that puts you at risk for becoming infected with HIV.

You are at risk for getting infected if you:

• have ever used needles to take drugs, steroids, or anything not prescribed by your doctor
• are a male who has had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977
• have ever taken money, drugs or other payment for sex since 1977
• have had sexual contact in the past 12 months with anyone described above
• received clotting factor concentrates for a bleeding disorder such as hemophilia
• were born in, or lived in, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria, since 1977.
• since 1977, received a blood transfusion or medical treatment with a blood product in any of these countries, or
• had sex with anyone who, since 1977, was born in or lived in any of these countries. Learn more about HIV Group O, and the specific African countries where it is found."

Now why would the Red Cross prohibit males who have had sexual contact with another male, even once, since 1977 from giving blood?

These articles below will answer that question as well:


"California Homosexual Organization Admits HIV/AIDS is "Gay Disease"

"LOS ANGELES, California, October 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Los
Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center has abandoned a long-held homosexual
activist contention by declaring on billboards posted throughout
Southern California that HIV/AIDS is a “gay disease.”

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the Center is trying to address rapidly increasing HIV infection rates among the homosexual population by rallying the gay community to increasing vigilance against exposure to the disease. Activists for the homosexual lifestyle have, until this current development, strongly, and sometimes vehemently refused to admit that the disease is predominantly generated among homosexual men.

The ad campaign, which is also running in magazines, is in part a response to the findings of public health officials, who have noted that three out of four cases of HIV infections are found in men who engage in homosexual activity, the United Press International reported.

In 2005 US health officials reported an alarming eight percent increase in HIV infection rates in one year alone among homosexual and bisexual men. The Center for Disease Control also warned that a survey of 15-29 year old men who engaged in homosexual activity “reported that the proportion of unrecognized HIV infection was as high as 77 %.”

A report by the Public Health Agency of Canada, released in August 2006, revealed a sharp increase in HIV/AIDS infections, with 51 percent of infections found in men engaging in homosexual activity." from: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/browse_thread/thread/306aed8b60a9bafb?pli=1

Here's another article:

One-Third of HIV-Infected Gay Men Have Unsafe Sex: CDC

"MONDAY, Dec. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Two new U.S. studies of gay and bisexual men who know they are infected with HIV show that more than one-third have recently had unprotected intercourse.

In many cases, these men are engaging in unprotected sex with other HIV-infected men -- a practice called "serosorting," where partners with a similar, HIV-positive blood test status decide to forego condoms.

However, "we also found that almost a third of the men -- 31.4 percent -- said that they had had unprotected anal intercourse with at least one partner of unknown serostatus, and almost a quarter had unprotected intercourse with a partner who they knew was HIV uninfected," said the lead author of one of the studies, Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical research director at Fenway Community Health, in Boston.

He and other researchers in HIV/AIDS presented their findings during a teleconference Monday, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National HIV Prevention Conference, in Atlanta.

"There are now more than one million people estimated to be living with HIV in the United States, more than ever before," said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention.

He also noted that half of all U.S. cases of HIV infection still occur among "men who have sex with men" (MSM), the CDC's umbrella term for gay and bisexual men, as well as men who may not identify as such but engage in male-male sexual activity.

And, Mayer added, unsafe sex was strongly linked to the use of recreational drugs, particularly methamphetamine, and was 60 percent more likely among younger men than older men.

The HIV epidemic in the United States may, in fact, be on the rise. According to recent media reports, sources close to CDC statisticians say that the annual rate of new HIV infections in the United States may soon be bumped up by 50 percent -- jumping from 40,000 new cases annually to up to 60,000." from: http://www.forbes.com/health/feeds/hscout/2007/12/03/hscout610571.html

and here is yet another article on the subject:

WHAT PERCENT OF GAY MEN HAVE HIV/AIDS?

"The answer is between 13% and 23%. This is how it's calculated -(click here)
This figure understates the percent of gay men who will become infected with HIV/AIDS, because many gay men who don't currently have it will become infected if they continue their lifestyle. I think it would be fair to approximate that a third of men who lead a gay lifestyle will become infected with HIV/AIDS.

As I demonstrated from the statistics above, gay sex is 160 to 290 times as likely to lead to HIV/AIDS as heterosexual sex. So yes, gay sex is risky and straight sex is relatively safe. That's what the numbers tell us. I'm not trying to justify any "revulsion towards gay sex," I'm just explaining the truth of the numbers.

When one third of gay men will contract HIV/AIDS during their lifetime, how can we say that this is an activity that can be made safe? The infection rates are so high that one can more properly say that gay sex is an inherently unsafe activity. Advising men on how to have safe gay sex is, therefore, like advising people how to safely drive drunk, or how to safely smoke crack. The only responsible advice for gay people is not how to make such a dangerous activity safer, but that that they shouldn't engage in this activity at all.

If any other activity, besides gay sex, led to such a high risk of infection of a deadly disease, there would be a huge campaign to get people to stop that activity. It would be made illegal. We would be bombarded by public service announcements like the "just say no" to drugs campaign. Just as "friends don't let friends drive drunk," people shouldn't let anyone they care about participate in gay sex. But because of the powerful pro-gay lobby which strongly influences the mainstream media and has an even greater control over Hollywood, the truth about the huge risk of gay sex is ignored, and anyone who says otherwise is accused of being "homophobic"." from: http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/06/gay_sex_inheren.html

and another article:


"Researchers at the conference released several new studies confirming reports of increased STD risk behaviors and infections among men who have sex with men (MSM) in certain U.S. cities. Several researchers noted that STD increases among MSM might be due to increased risky sexual behavior following the success of anti-retroviral therapy for treating HIV/AIDS and the perception that HIV is no longer a serious problem. Many researchers also called for new and effective approaches to prevent STDs among MSM.

Valdiserri also noted that CDC is studying ways to expand access to effective prevention programs for gay and bisexual men. These programs will address the unsafe sexual practices and complacency that have resulted, in part, from advances in treatment, and help men to establish and maintain safer behaviors over a lifetime." from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Press_Releases/STDGay2000.htm

and another:

"Over the past few years, unprotected anal sex, sexually transmitted infections (STI), and HIV incidence has increased among men who have sex with men (MSM) in San Francisco [1,2] and urban MSM communities elsewhere in north America, Europe, and Australia [3-7]. In our previous studies, trends in sexual risk behavior were analysed combining both MSM exclusively and men who have sex with men and women (MSMW) [1,2]. Although without conclusive evidence, a 'bisexual bridge' has been a cause for concern in the past because of the possible spread of HIV into the general population [8]. In the present report, we update our sexual risk behavior data and compare trends in MSM with MSMW in San Francisco."from: http://www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-200407230-00019.htm;jsessionid=JhNJnSSspTK2tcXg8BTvqxQrNvl90z1ZfCF2Tpk6G6K4J1rcB8gv!-628279283!181195628!8091!-1


and thanks to another comment - another article:

Alarming finding on HIV in gay men - Most in U.S. study unaware of infection

"The vast majority of young gay and bisexual men in the United States who were found to be infected with HIV in a new study were unaware of their infection, according to findings reported at the International AIDS Conference on Sunday. The rates of unawareness among minority gay men age 15 to 29 in the study were staggeringly high. Among those studied, 90 percent of blacks, 70 percent of Latinos and 60 percent of whites said they did not know they were infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Most of these infected men perceived themselves to be at low risk of being HIV-positive, despite having engaged in frequent high-risk sex like unprotected anal intercourse, said Duncan MacKellar, an epidemiologist from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which conducted the study.

The study involved 5,719 men who were interviewed at dance clubs, bars and other places frequented by gays in six cities: Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle. The study tested the men for exposure to the AIDS virus, finding that 573 had HIV. Of those, 440, or 77 percent, said they thought they were not infected. The results of the HIV tests were available to the men, but it is not known how many sought the results or learned that they were infected". " - from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/07/08/MN98335.DTL