Some Quotes Regarding The AIDS Epidemic

§ From the Feb./March 2021 issue of the LGBT publication The Advocate: "700,000 Americans [have died of HIV-related causes over the years], 550,000 of those being gay men or transgender women. 5000 people still die annually---two-thirds of which are gay and bi men or transgender women....Of the nearly 40,000 new HIV diagnoses in the U.S. in 2018, 69 percent were among gay or bi men" ("Why We Must Be PrEP-ared," Richie Jackson, p. 11). Using a VERY conservative estimate of how much it costs America to pay for HIV/AIDS care from the time a person gets HIV/AIDS to the time they die from it ($300,000), we can say that the lifestyles of those 550,000 "gay men or transgender women" who died of HIV-related causes cost America a minimum of $165 billion (300,000 times 550,000). That's a lot of money we could have spent on starving children around the world, or on senior citizens in this country who have trouble affording the medications they need, or on other worthy causes. And when you figure in all the millions and millions of dollars this country annually spends on anti-retroviral drugs to combat HIV/AIDS, you can see how much voluntary, unsafe sex by homo/bisexuals and "transgender women" is costing us. Outrageous. (Incidentally, for the record, that 550,000 figure seems somewhat high to us.)

§ The June/July 2019 issue of the LGBT publication The Advocate acknowledged that "Gay and bisexual men continue to account for the largest portion (about 70 percent) of new [HIV] diagnoses" ("Ending HIV in America" by Jacob Anderson-Minshall, p. 26).

§ From the Windy City Times, an LGBT newspaper in Chicago, Illinois: "In 2015, there were 921 new HIV infections in Chicago,...about 76 percent were men who have sex with men" (Matt Simonette, "New CDPH data: 921 new HIV infections in 2015," Dec. 7, 2016, p. 8).

§ According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2015 (the latest year for which these statistics were available when this CDC article was written), "Gay and bisexual men accounted for 82% (26,375) of HIV diagnoses among males and 67% of all [HIV] diagnoses."

§ From a September 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal (online): "Gay and bisexual men represent an estimated 2% of the U.S. population but more than half of all people living with HIV and 66% of new HIV infections. They are the only population group in the United States for which HIV infections are rising. Projections have shown that if current trends continue, half of all gay and bisexual men will be HIV-positive by age 50" (Drew Altman, "Behind the Increase in HIV Infections Among Gay and Bisexual Men," Sept. 25, 2014).

§ According to a September 2013 report, "CDC e-HAP FYI Updates: Sixth Annual National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS Awareness Day" , from the Centers for Disease Control: "Gay and bisexual men of all races and ethnicities are still at the center of the HIV epidemic in the United States. Just 2% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 63% of all new HIV infections in 2010 and 52% of people living with HIV infection in the United States in 2009. From 2008 to 2010, the estimated number of new HIV infections rose 12% among MSM overall and 22% among young MSM (aged 13 to 24 years)."

§ According to a 2013 report by the Centers for Disease Control, titled "HIV Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults", approximately 92% of all AIDS cases found in American males age 13 to 24 are found in males who have sex with other males. OUT magazine, a homosexual magazine, noted in its October 2013 issue that there has been "a 22% rise in HIV rates in young gay men in recent years....[And that] if HIV infections continue to rise at current rates, half of young gay men will have HIV by age 50....[And that] gay men forego condoms up to half the time" despite the years of warnings about AIDS (Tim Murphy, "Is This The New Condom," OUT, p. 72).

§ According to a CDC report released Dec. 19, 2012, titled "Estimated HIV Incidence in the United States, 2007-2010": "Comparing 2008 to 2010, the number of new HIV infections remained stable, with 47,500...new infections in 2008 and 47,500...in 2010....Comparing 2008 to 2010, the number of new HIV infections among MSM [men who have sex with men] increased 12% from 26,700...in 2008 to 29,800...in 2010." Thus, we can conclude that in 2010 roughly 63% of new HIV infections in the U.S. occured among MSM, a small minority.

§ From the June 8, 2011 Windy City Times, a homosexual newspaper out of Chicago: "Lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to be at increased risk for unhealthy behaviors such as tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use...[plus] sexual behaviors that could lead to infection with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases" ("Study: LGB youth more at risk" by Dana Rudolph, p. 4). This helps explain why the average homosexual lifespan is significantly shorter than the average heterosexual lifespan. Too, one wonders if the homosexuals who run the Windy City Times are being labeled bigots, haters, and homophobes by other homosexuals and their misguided straight supporters for publishing those facts. That's the kind of nonsensical treatment decent, moral people have to deal with on a daily basis from many homosexuals and their straight supporters. Conveying inconvenient truths about homosexuals is verboten.

§ From the June 5, 2011 Chicago Sun-Times: "A year's worth of HIV medication can cost $18,000 or more, and about 30 percent of people with HIV are uninsured....Gay men continue to account for more than half of new infections, and they are the only group in which the number of new infections is rising" ("AIDS turns 30---and life goes on" by Monifa Thomas, p. 19A).

§ From the June 5, 2011 Chicago Tribune: "[G]ay and bisexual men represent just 2 percent of the American population....[N]early 20 percent of gay and bisexual men in major U.S. cities are HIV-positive" ("At 30, AIDS still scourge" by Melissa Healy & Thomas H. Maugh II, section 1, p. 4).

§ From the Aug. 28, 2009 Washington Blade, a homosexual newspaper (http://www.washblade.com/2009/8-28/news/national/15098.cfm): "Gay and bisexual men account for half of new HIV infections in the U.S. and have AIDS at a rate more than 50 times greater than other groups, according to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention data presented at the National HIV Prevention Conference this week in Atlanta [underline ours]."

§ From a 2006 Associated Press report: "An American diagnosed with the AIDS virus can expect to live for about 24 years on average, and the cost of health care over those two-plus decades is more than $600,000....[T]he average annual cost of care is about $25,200....[T]he monthly cost of care...[is] $2,100, with about two-thirds of that spent on medications."1

§ The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Nov. 27, 2003, that there has been "a 17 percent increase in new HIV cases among gay men over the last three years....The CDC [Centers for Disease Control] said the infection rate among heterosexuals and intravenous drug users did not change significantly."2

§ U.S. News & World Report interestingly described AIDS as one of those "scourges that start in the upper reaches of society [i.e., the 'upper classes'] and come tumbling down the social ladder."3 As some of the following quotes show, AIDS has struck hard at young urban professionals. These quotes imply an unusual correlation between education and unsafe sex. (One would think educated professionals should be intelligent enough to avoid risky, life-threatening sex.)

§ "A CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] study released...this month [July 2002] found that many gay and bisexual men who are HIV-positive don't know it. Overall, 77 percent of the...HIV-positive men in the study were unaware they were infected."4 (One would think "intelligent" people engaging in unsafe sex would know they are at risk for AIDS and would be tested and would know whether they have it. And is smoking a sign of intelligence? The Sept. 13, 2004, edition of U.S. News & World Report [p. 55], noted that "Up to 50 percent of adult gay men are smokers...compared with 28 percent of men in the general population.")

§ "In New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, the number of cases of syphilis in homosexual men approximately doubled every year from 1998 through 2001, and it looks like they will double again this year [2002]....[T]he syphilis outbreaks not only tell us that our hopes of eliminating this disease with the next decade are gone, but also confirm predictions that we will see a second wave of HIV infection in gay men."5

§ The "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported...that the incidence of new HIV infections diagnosed among homosexual men climbed 14 percent between 1999 and 2001, significantly higher than the 8 percent growth among the entire U.S. population."6

§ The total number of Americans infected with HIV is estimated to be 900,000 to one million for 2002; and the number of infected has been rising in recent years by about 25,000 annually (40,000 new HIV infections every year, but, since the advent of potent anti-AIDS drugs, only 15,000 deaths due to AIDS annually----40,000 minus 15,000 equals 25,000).7

§ "The average [health care] cost for an HIV-positive patient [in the U.S. in 2002] is $14,000 per year, while care for those with full-blown AIDS averages $34,000 a year....[But] the figures may, in fact, be conservative [because wholesale, not retail, prices for anti-AIDS drugs were used in the computations]."8

§ "The whole theater community has lost so many to AIDS."9

§ "The AIDS epidemic has taken a disproportionately large number of its victims from the arts world; certainly no one who works in opera has not lost friends and colleagues to it."10

§ "Gail Kalver, general manager of the Hubbard Street Dance Company,...has observed the ranks of many ballet and dance troupes depleted by death through AIDS."11

§ "[T]he tremendous losses AIDS has brought upon the figure skating community...[is due to] the prevalence of homosexual men in the figure skating world."12

§ "In every branch of culture----dance, theater, literature, music, design, fashion, art, television, movies----the devastation from AIDS continues."13

§ "So many artists I've known are dead [from AIDS], and so many more are going to die. Choreographers, dancers, musicians, opera singers, designers."14

§ "AIDS took hold of so many artists."15

§ "State prisons [in Illinois] spent $2.5 million on AIDS drugs during the first seven months of 1998."16

§ Illinois "spent $16 million this fiscal year [1996-97] on a program to provide drugs to poor HIV patients."17

§ In 1999, Medicaid spent $617 million funding anti-AIDS drug regimens for poor HIV-infected people.18

§ "Before anyone knew much about the [AIDS] scourge, the virus had contaminated the blood supply and infected thousands of people....In the early 1980s, 1 out of 50 bags of blood collected in San Francisco contained HIV."19

§ "Between 1979 and 1984, with syphilis peaking and bathhouses serving thousands of men a week, HIV tore through the gay population in magnet cities like San Francisco and New York. Reconstructions of the [AIDS] epidemic estimate that close to half of gay men in these cities----and between 270,000 and 490,000 nationwide----became infected in just these few years."20

§ In the 1980s, "tainted blood infected 20,000 Americans with HIV [most if not all of whom have probably died of AIDS by now]....Fueled by new testing technology, the cost of a pint of blood has increased from $40 two decades ago to $150 to $200 today [2003]----almost four times the increase in the general inflation rate."21 Those "politically (in)correct" liberal Neanderthals, who think that whatever happens in the privacy of one's bedroom is nobody else's business, are plainly wrong and are plainly in need of some educating. Because so many people, homosexual and bisexual and heterosexual, are engaging in unsafe sex, we have to put donated blood through many more expensive screening tests than we did in more sexually conservative times. Unsafe sex is obviously not cost-free.

§ From the Chicago Free Press, a homosexual newspaper: "In a thoughtful and important commentary published in New York's Gay City News (3/15/07), longtime AIDS activist Spencer Cox and psychologist Bruce Kellerhouse explore some reasons for rising rates of HIV infection among mid-life gay men. They write: 'New data released by the (New York City) Department of Health show that the highest rates of new HIV infections are among gay men 35-49 years old.'"22

§ From the Nov. 28, 2007 Journal of the American Medical Association: "MSM [men who have sex with men] have accounted for a higher proportion of AIDS cases than any other group in countries such as the United States (44%), Canada (65%), and Australia (64%)....[And there was a] 10-fold increase in primary and secondary syphilis cases reported among MSM in the United States from 2001 to 2005....Recent U.S. surveys of MSM document high rates of unsafe sex."23

FOOTNOTES

1. Associated Press, "U.S. HIV forecast: 24 years, $600,000," Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 2006, section 1, p. 8.

2. "HIV increase worries feds," Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 27, 2003, p. 43.

3. Michael Barone and David Gergen, "Tomorrow," U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 17, 1990, p. 32.

4. Kevin McKeough, "With STDs, many still wind up sorry instead of safe," Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2002, sec. 8, p. 1.

5. Tom Farley, "Cruise Control (Bathhouses are reigniting the AIDS crisis)," Washington Monthly, Nov. 2002, pp. 37-41.

6. "CDC reports 1% increase in AIDS cases," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 12, 2003, sec. 1, p. 12.

7. Thomas Maugh II, "Untreated HIV soars, U.S. warns," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 26, 2002, sec. 1, p. 11.

8. Thomas Maugh II, "Report: AIDS has orphaned 13.4 million," Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2002, sec. 1, p. 4.

9. Neil Steinberg, "50,000 Join AIDS Walk," Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 18, 1995, p. 8.

10. Sarah Bryan Miller, "Operatic AIDS benefit hits most of the right notes," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 18, 1995, sec. 5, p. 2.

11. Richard Christiansen, "Artists face AIDS with craft and care," Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1992, sec. 1, p. 12.

12. Liesl Schillinger, "Cut-throats on ice," Chicago Sun-Times, March 10, 1996, "Showcase" sec., p. 14.

13. David Ansen, "A Lost Generation," Newsweek, Jan. 18, 1993, p. 16.

14. Mark Morris, "The Artist," U.S. News & World Report, June 17, 1991, p. 26.

15. Chris Jones, "Success from sorrow, and a predecessor for 'Smokefall,'" Chicago Tribune, Sept. 26, 2014, section 5, p. 6.

16. Tim Novak, "Fewer inmates dying from AIDS," Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 31, 1998, p. 19.

17. Dave McKinney,"AIDS deaths down 21% but decline is uneven,"Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 16, 1997, p. 14.

18. Andrew Zajac and Bruce Japsen, "Medicaid pays more for AIDS drugs," Chicago Tribune, July 27, 2001, sec. 3, p. 1.

19. Rachel K. Sobel, "A bloody mess," U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 3, 2001, p. 37.

20. Tom Farley, "Cruise Control (Bathhouses are reigniting the AIDS crisis)," Washington Monthly, Nov. 2002, p. 37.

21. David Kohn, "Debate on blood supply heats up," Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1, 2003, sec. 1, p. 14.

22. Paul Varnell, "AIDS in Mid-Life," Chicago Free Press, March 28, 2007, p. 4.

23. Drs. Harold Jaffe, Ronald Valdiserri, and Kevin DeCock, "The Reemerging HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Men Who Have Sex With Men," Journal of the American Medical Association, Nov. 28, 2007, p. 2412.