A looney tunes state legislature here in TN is using this column as back-up for some outdated notions regarding AIDS. (See http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2012/01/26/stacey-campfield-on-the-origins-of-aids-it-was-one-guy-screwing-a-monkey.) He responds in the comment section with the link to What are the odds of getting AIDS from ordinary heterosexual sex? - The Straight Dope. Would love to see this column either yanked or updated, and for Unca Cecil to update the public via press release to TN news outlets. THAT would be a hoot and a great service.
I’ve reported this to Ed.
Someone else makes the following point in the comments section:
“[The Straight Dope column] basically says that having protected sex with low risk partners is a lot safer than having unprotected sex with high risk partners. How he extrapolates that it’s ‘virtually impossibly to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex’ from that article I’ll never figure out.”
This says all that really needs to be said. The column is ~24 years old and hasn’t been updated but it’s likely that even if the numbers were current the conclusion would be basically the same. This guy is going to twist whatever he can get his hands on to suit his prejudices; fine-tuning the facts (or estimates in this case) isn’t going to change his mind.
I heard that there are now more heterosexual females than homosexual males living with HIV.
According to this one site, half of the people with HIV are heterosexual females, which would indicate that the remainder of the plurality are heterosexual and homosexual males. That’d significantly increase the risk of heterosexual unprotected sex (even though it’s less risky for a male to contract it) from when there were fewer incidences of females with HIV I guess.