In the late 1970s, a terrible plague struck “gay” men. In 1981, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finally gave the plague a name — Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) — and identified the cause as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection.
Although HIV is primarily spread through sex or sharing needles used to inject drugs, infections in the US are most common in men who have unprotected sex with men, both anal and oral.
35 years later, despite all the publicity and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in educating those very “gay” men on safe sex, the CDC says a staggering 50% or one out of every two black homosexual men will get HIV.
So much for human rationality, the foundation of voting and democratic self-government.
Lisa Ryan reports for Daily Mail that the CDC released its first comprehensive national estimates of the lifetime risk of HIV infection by population group and state. Here are the CDC’s findings:
- The average American has a one in 99 risk of HIV infection.
- Although new HIV infections have fallen in the US to nearly 40,000 a year, as many as 10,000 of those cases occur in homo- and bisexual black men — a figure that has stayed put, while infection rates in other groups have decreased.
- The population group most at risk of HIV infection are “gay” and bisexual black men, who have a one-in-two lifetime risk of HIV infection.
- The next most at risk population group are Hispanic homosexual men, who have a 1-in-4 lifetime risk of contracting HIV, the same risk as black women.
- The risk for white “gay” men is 1-in-11.
- Overall, men who have sex with men face the highest risk of infection (1-in-6), followed by people who inject drugs.
- Heterosexual women have a higher risk of HIV (1-in-241) than heterosexual men (1-in-473).
- People living in the District of Columbia have the highest risk of infection (1 in 13), followed by Maryland (1 in 49), Georgia (1 in 51) and Florida (1 in 54).
- North Dakota residents face the lowest risk (1-in-670).
According to the CDC, a number of factors may contribute to gay and bisexual black men’s higher risk HIV risk:
- Socioeconomic circumstances: limited access to quality health care, lower income and educational levels, and higher rates of unemployment and incarceration.
- Smaller sexual networks: Black gay and bisexual men are a small subset of all gay and bisexual men, and their partners tend to be of the same race.
- Lack of awareness of HIV status: Black gay and bisexual men are also more likely to be HIV-positive and not know it, and so they don’t take advantage of HIV care and treatment and may unknowingly pass HIV to others.
Dr. Eugene McCray, director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, said:
“These estimates are a sobering reminder that gay and bisexual men face an unacceptably high risk for HIV – and of the urgent need for action. If we work to ensure that every American has access to the prevention tools we know work, we can avoid the outcomes projected in this study.”
Blah, blah. blah.
Hey, Dr. McCray, what about “gay” blacks’ self-responsibility? Why is it ALWAYS society’s fault?
Source: CDC
~Eowyn
