Yes, and Hitler would have denied being a monster...

I have been folowing this thread with interest. Partly because as a registrar doctor, I am doing my three month attachment in community sexual health clinics, (GU medicine.) I deliver the details of test results to people, both from screening and referral most days, together with next step advice.

Luckily, HIV is fairly rare, compared to most sexual health issues and in a large city, seeing about 40 patients per clinic, four clinics per week, I have yet to find a new HIV case. Statistically, I shall before the end of this month. A GP contacted me this morning over one they have picked up, a needle share in this case.

Musket quoted the figures for England for 2012/13, and when the naysayers called him a liar, he then posted a link to an independent HIV advice website that has the figures, as well as saying they can be found on NHS CHoices and Public Health England websites.

So I find it rather interesting to see spurious statistics are being banded around and the historical actual numbers dismissed as liberal propoganda. I won't be making a career in sexual health, (I major in endocrinology) but I do take a huge interest in it of course, as even low key issues such as chlamydia can cause long term issues and infertility. HIV and hepatitus are conditions you are reminded of each and every day for the rest of your life.

Some of the homophobia this website has to put up with by those equating sexual health with a small part of the population beggars belief. This is not a gay issue. The majority of people I see walking into the drop in clinics for screening are indeed gay, as historically they were a majority when it comes to sufferers, but even with that history, as you can see when you look up this thread, they may be the largest single group but they are by no means the majority. Added to whcih, as statistics have to always be treated with caution, NHS coding in some areas of the country class needle stick and needle share as MSM if the person ticks themselves as gay on the screening form. New nationally consistent coding criteria is something Public Health England are bringing out from this April, (and likewise under service level agreements for Scotland, Wales and NI.)

The moral, religious, social and sexual aspects of sexual health are perhaps interesting debating points if you can stomach some of the rather astonishing words used by presumably intelligent people, but when it comes to the clinical side, well.... You can't throw figures around because this is a field of healthcare with the most subjective data you can get. The Health Protection Agency had access to GP and hospital figures but had to estimate from commissioning statistics the confidential clinic figures. From April, a more representative prevalance dataset will be used, so in just over a year, the picture will, the experts think, look more like that forcast by one of our Profs, who you know as Musket. He is in The USA at present, presenting a paper on World Health Organisation alignment of screening. (To include cancers, his pet area etc. not by any means just STDs.)

I was told that last week, speaking to medical students, he mentioned Mudcat as an example of intelligence not being an indicator of objectivity. I'm not surprised...