Just read where the number of AIDS cases is growing again in the US. Would someone please tell me how this happens? I excuse drug addicts cause they don’t behave rationally but who else is that ignorant? Or is there ways to get AIDS that aren’t well known? too many questions… not enough answers. Does anybody have a firsthand or secondhand story?
There have been several news stories recently relating that young gays are seeing a rising incidence of HIV infection, after a decline for several years. The advent of life prolonging drug therapy as well as the fact that people just now reaching adulthood didn’t witness the early years, when diagnosis often meant a year or less of not very pleasant life left, have been cited as reasons in stories I’ve seen.
No, I don’t have a cite and I have to go now.
According to this article http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=214145
the increase in HIV is in young gay minority men.
Could it be that sexual education isn’t very effective in the US? Maybe the hypocritical attitude towards sexuality in general has something to do with this? “Abstinence-only” isn’t probably very realistic or effective policy?
Oh… you meant just the U.S. I was going to mention that AIDS is far more severe in the Third World, most notably Africa.
IANAD, but I expect the only reasons AIDS will continue to be a threat are:
- Ignorance. Basically “It won’t happen to me” syndrome.
- Stupidity. “I don’t remember last night… we did what?”
- Mutation. The scary possibility that some strain will become transmittable through casual contact.
I’ll offer a cite or two to back up beatle’s assertion that there is a rise in risky sexual activity given the perception that AIDS is now a “manageable” disease.
From webmd.com
Well, just one cite. Search google for ‘barebacking’ and you’ll find much discussion on this topic.
Then the consensus is that black men and women just don’t comprehend the facts. So is that proof that blacks are mentally inferior? Can you expand that to the white homosexual community?
This article in the NY Times may have been one that beatle saw.
From the article:
Um… what?!? I hope for your sake you’re being hyperbolic.
Um.
I don’t see anyone but you drawing that conclusion, and it’s a very dangerous one to take with the limited data provided. Why do you state that a rise in minority infection rates means that blacks and homosexuals are mentally inferior?
justinh, I feel a warning coming on if you don’t explain that statement…
To answer the OP- “who gets AIDS nowadays?”
Everybody. It is not exclusive to any group, ethnicity, social strata or intelligence level.
I asked a very straight forward question. I received several responses:
one from LNO citing that minority men and woman had the highest infection rates.
another from mrblue92 listed the reasons as 1. iqnorance 2. stupidity, 3. mutation
the rest of the posters confirmed the above 2 points.
I only asked if putting the 2 points together gave the next question. When does that constitute a problem or reason for a warning?
I think the point that a few people were trying to make is that there is an attitude among some in the gay community that AIDS is a ‘manageable’ and ‘treatable’ disease, and no longer the death sentence it was ten or twenty years ago. I suggested a way to find a plethora of information through Google.
I’m sure that soon enough, someone with far more knowledge in this area will explain the situation – I’m merely relying on a few news articles, an internet search, and the common sense that there’s no cut-and-dried “oh, they’re getting AIDS because they’re stupid, and they’re stupid because they’re black or gay” answer.
I agree. Hearing that a disease is “treatable” can cause people to fear it less, even if it is not “cureable.”
Dangerous. Also, maybe the fact that people have been hearing about AIDS for so long that they are becoming desensitized. Dangerous as well.
A lot of people in the Deaf community are at increased risk. A friend of mine is a Deaf educator who’s been working at teaching her community about HIV infection.
There are two reasons Deaf people are at far more risk (and I’m using the capital D to denote those folks who self-identify as part of this community, who are far more likely to sign as their primary form of communication). One reason, as I understand her, is that most of the attempts to translate “HIV positive” come out as “HIV good.” The same sign means positive and good. It’s very hard for someone to understand a confusing sentence like “You are HIV good/well and you need to use protection.”
The second reason is that many Deaf people think that since they already have a disability because they are deaf, they can’t get another one, so they’re immune to HIV. Not a good mix with the above!
I’d say the abstinence training is a crock…plenty of kids decide that they’re never going to have sex, and don’t need to worry about that kind of protection…then they get “swept away” just one night, and don’t bother. There’s a really nasty habit of some educators to mix morality and safety. Yes, waiting until marriage is moral. Waiting until marriage to sleep with an HIV+ person won’t protect you. Seducing nuns is not moral, but it’s certainly safe in terms of your catching anything from them. We need to get morality out of the sex ed classes. Morality is variable; safety is not.
Corr
I disagree with the desensitized point. How long have you hear about rabies from dogs,rats,bats,skunks,? Well I have heard about that all my life and when I see a questionable dog, or a rat,bat,skunk… I think “watch out they might have rabies”. If I did try to pick up a bat and got bit and rabies I couldn’t use the excuse “well I have know that they can have rabies but I never thought one would get me because I have heard the warnings too often”
my question is: Why did I get rabies?
one possible answer is: I was too stupid to listen to the warnings.
Jeez Corr, are you serious? What about written materials? You make the Deaf community sound less than bright, though I know you didn’t mean to and that’s not the case.
The part about one disability protecting you from another could almost make sense, though.
I know several people who felt they really dodged a bullet remaining HIV negative, only to get Hep C.
When I was in HS, AIDS was a joke and we would never catch it. I did not use condoms until college or later, I can’t remember. I still can’t believe I’m negative.
But that was at the beginning of the pandemic, when you could still hear in the media that only gay men got it. Of course, Time magazine said in the 1970’s that cocaine was non-addictive…
I find it hard to believe that in the US today, ignorance couls be a factor. Willfull disregard makes more sense.
I think it’s safe to say that economics are a factor in the higher infection rates of minorities.
According to the 1992 US census, “33% of blacks and 29% of Hispanics lived below the federal poverty level, ****** compared with 13% of Asians/ Pacific Islanders and 10% of whites.” (Bureau of the Census. Poverty in the United States, 1992)
If you’re having a hard time keeping the cupboards stocked, you’re unlikely to shell out $10 a week for condoms.
What?!
I’ve only known two deaf people, and only one of them was congenitally deaf. They certainly weren’t that stupid, and I can’t imagine anyone reasoning that way. Nobody gets old enough to be sexually active without catching a cold, so I think it’s safe to assume that they’d know that they don’t have any special immunity to infectious diseases.
justin, are you looking for the answer, or just looking for people to agree with your position on the inferiority of minorities?
Just because ignorance about AIDS is most the likely reason people are infected with it does not mean you can leap to the conclusion that higher infection rates in a certain minority indicate a lack of intelligence among that group. I would categorize LNO’s explanation as a very reasonable one–that ignorance of the fact AIDS is still deadly is at least partially the cause.
Here my educated guess:
- Most experts seem to agree that AIDS originated in Africa.
- Therefore, it was likely brought to the US by Africans.
- Most Africans are black.
- Although we sometimes claim to be a color-blind society, people still have a tendency to socialize with more people of their own race than with other races.
Conclusion: the distribution of the virus from it’s source made it more likely to infect a black American than a white one. (And Larry makes a good point, too.)
Along the same lines, homosexuals, obviously being more open minded about sex than the general public, are probably more open minded about interracial dating. (I would not risk concluding an increased level of promiscuity among homosexuals must be the reason, though I suppose others would… I don’t know if there are legitimate statistics on this or not.)
I’m not saying these are correct explanations, but if you are intellectually honest, you need to at least consider them.
EJsGirl: “Willful disregard” (depending on how you define it) is either ignorance or stupidity IMHO.
I sense a forum switch in this thread’s future.
(Brief hijack.) Medically, cocaine isn’t addictive at all.
It’s only addictive in the same sense that gambling or participating in internet forums is.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.