BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:40 PM

Whats it name: "Your friends Ake and GfS, whom you are labouring to support, say that gay men are "unhygienic" in a way that straight people are not and that to stop the spread of HIV you have to "control" or "punish" gay people. Yet 2000-2008 the number of white straight people contracting HIV each year in an enormous pool with only a small starting number of carriers, grew 5 times."

Like I've been saying, promiscuity is like playing Russian Roullete, you're fighting over using one bullet, or two......and those same individuals seem to have a 'bug up their ass', about monogamous, heterosexual pair bonding, that produces families....and then think I don't get it. I think you're pandering to the lowest common denominator of human LIFE, you know, Life...instincts of preservation and reproduction...lower, being of course, something that shorts out either one of those circuits! I'll give you this...in the child bearing years!
Now I'm sure you'll want to 're-define' the known and accepted scientific definition of living things...to suit your enthusiasm for satisfying your personal horniness. Its okay, I don't care what you do, or who you do it with.....its just that homosexuals spend an inordinate amount of time and energy, trying to palm it off as a normal and a civil rights issue....as if homosexuality is an essential part of building a society. It's a dead end!
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:13 PM

Bean counters!!

Okay, all you statistics wonks, just what do all of these numbers you keep slapping each other with amount to?

Based on each of your interpretations of the numbers you are flogging, can any of you suggest a course of action!??

What should anybody do about all this?

(Be careful, now! Be damned careful!)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: mousethief
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:46 PM

The only numbers that matter are the ones I think are important.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:40 PM

Royston...you are not making sense...you say "In fact the fastest growing group of HIV+ people (straight people)"....while UNAIDS says "HIV infections are falling world wide, but homosexual infections are rising".

Are you up to your old trick of mixing real numbers with percentages?

Of course heterosexual infections are the fastest growing,(for the moment) but that point is meaningless on its own, because the hetero population is so massively larger than the homosexual population.

The only figures which bear any relevance to this discussion, are the respective percentage of infection statistics.

As the total hiv infection figures are falling worldwide and the homosexual figures rising, even in real numbers the gap will be narrowing, not widening

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:19 PM

Don't be silly, Keith and don't tell lies or try to deflect the discussion.

What I said, about "the Africans", is that adding their number into the number of white UK HIV carriers in the "straight" pool, multiplies further the risk of any one straight person, who practices unsafe sex, contracting HIV if all other factors are constant

Your friends Ake and GfS, whom you are labouring to support, say that gay men are "unhygienic" in a way that straight people are not and that to stop the spread of HIV you have to "control" or "punish" gay people. Yet 2000-2008 the number of white straight people contracting HIV each year in an enormous pool with only a small starting number of carriers, grew 5 times. Whereas gay men, allegedly unhygienic and certainly more exposed to HIV in purely logical, accidental, epidemiological terms, less than doubled.

Now any increase in disease and illness is a terrible thing but, remembering the context of this discussion, straight people must be behaving in dangerous ways that make gay men look like nuns; for straight HIV+ numbers to have increased so dramatically. It's bleeding obvious that if their behaviour stays the same, and the numbers of HIV+ straight carriers keep growing, there is very big problem coming.

In fact the fastest growing group of HIV+ people (straight people) could quite possinly learn something useful from gay men about protecting themselves and arresting their growing numbers.

Now have you anything of substance to add or are you going to keep running away from this?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 05:00 PM

Oh come on Keith, I think you should let Royston have his hetero epidemic.....he was so looking forward to it! :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 04:01 PM

Royston, re. your
"There is every chance it is the beginning of an accelerating trend.
Add in the Africans in the UK carrier pool and new straight infections outnumber gay ones by a factor of up to 5:12

Add them in and it is even further from an exponential progression.
Those figures doubled in the first 2 years, and eight years later have still not doubled again!
Some years they even go down!

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 03:54 PM

Richard, you tried this trick on me once before, remember?
The clever lawyer trying to bamboozle a gullible magistrate or jury and appear to know more than they do.
I am a physicist Richard, and there is nothing you can tell me about an exponential increase.
For a start, there should be a constant doubling time.
These figures doubled in the first 2 years, and took another 5 years to double again!
There is not even an increase on differences!
They go 90,160,110,140,90,40,130,130.
Not impressed Richard.
A shoddy attempt to deceive.
Some of us are trying to have an honest debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 03:31 PM

"Better to have sex with a lifelong spouse, wouldn't you say??"

Well actually, according to the reading I have been doing today, this does not apply for young wives from numerous countries worldwide.

Young women become infected by older husbands with a long andcomplicated sexual history, and then they don't bother getting tested because the social stigma and actual physical consequences of bein found out simply going for a test are not worth the risk.

Being married in many countries world wide can, in terms of HIV, be a death sentence.

I'll provide links tomorrow evening or sunday as I have to go now.

have fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 03:04 PM

Lox - a rare compliment from me. How nice to see a correct use of "may" in place of the almost ubiquitous misuse of it for "might".

I have been puzzling over the insistence of the unholy alliance here that the prevalence of AIDS is statistically significantly linked, both as to incidence and as to growth rates to male homosexual behaviour and/or to being African.

In the case of Keith, he has indicated that his concern is solely correct statistical analysis. I find that hard to swallow (sorry if the imagery disturbs) in that the only places I have seen his pedagogic statistical bent exhibited are on this thread and on the thread about UK immigration.

It seems more plausible that the stated insistence is linked to hostility as such to male homosexuals and to Africans. In some cases (this is not a specific reference to Keith, but that in turn is not to waive the possibility of the reference including him) that that hostility is pretty baldly expressed as "Keep 'em out or lock 'em up" but it may be that it runs even deeper (and in less acceptable channels) than that.

Reverting now to statistics, Keith, you hypothesise, I think, that the rate of growth of AIDS (probably more correctly detected and reported AIDS) is linear.   I cannot be bothered to do the analysis, but if you take your figures over your number of years and then do a typical 2-tail Tukey test (or a Tukey-Neave test) on them, what is your degree of confidence found? If you took instead, the null hypothesis that the rate of growth was exponential, what degree of confidence would you find for that? I can't be bothered to dig my old copy of Ya-Lun Chou (or Sokolnikoff & Redheffer) out and do the sums (and anyway I haven't got the raw data) but given the shortness of the period of available data I would expect the two to be much the same. Tell me, O! statistical devotee, what does the statistical analysis show?   Depending on your answer, I may want to check your calculations and sources.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:59 PM

Oh aye......and ye think yer Napoleon as well.....:0)

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:57 PM

GfS, what leads you to think I am not enojoying a life-long relationship?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:55 PM

Don't be ridiculous, Keith

It is not exponential because it is not the start of an epidemic.

There is every chance it is the beginning of an accelerating trend.

Add in the Africans in the UK carrier pool and new straight infections outnumber gay ones by a factor of up to 5:1

Do you deny these fundamental risks and these facts of basic epidemiology? Say so and say why.

Am I to take it that you do now accept the ways in which HIV might be hot-housed in minority sexual networks? If not, say so and say why.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:48 PM

No, Keith, my assretions are not at odds with the WHO. I am not saying there will be a straight epidemic in the west to rival Africa. I am saying something quite different. You are running away.

On the causes of the incidence rate amongst gay men in the west, my assertions match de Cock - it's all about sexual networks. I am adding further detail to the discussion. You are running away

You never had any credibility with me, any that you have with others appears to be diminishing, I think.

At some point you have to put up, or shut up.

I have stated my grounds, they are cogent and logical. If you disagree then say so and say why.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:44 PM

Royston, re. your "But, Keith, you damn well know that in epidemioloy, the rate of new infection is not linear. As the pool of carriers grows, so the rate of transmission increases and the line bends towards exponentiality."

That is exactly the point Royston. If this were going to be an epidemic it would be exponential.
It is not exponential because it is not the start of an epidemic.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:43 PM

Royston: "Penetrative sex with a condom is safe."

Unless they have a jealous boyfriend!

BTW, condoms don't feel as good either. Better to have sex with a lifelong spouse, wouldn't you say??.....never mind, you can't speak from experience!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:40 PM

Royston, re. your "If you think my assertions or my gounds are wrong then say so, and say why."

I think they are wrong only because they are diametrically opposed to the opinions of the world's leading authorities on HIV/AIDS.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:36 PM

Royston...I thought you were trying to say that 96% of homosexuals worldwide were hiv negative and therefore heterosexuals in Africa were more affected by hiv/ aids than homosexuals.

I dont suppose I need to re-state that this is most definately not the case.

In percentage terms, the homosexual/hetero ratios in Africa are worse for homosexuals than the UK ratios.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:36 PM

Lox was making thoughtful, intelligent points.
I acknowledged that by saying "Fair point" and spent some time considering them and looking at the evidence.
I made considered replies.
I really enjoy debating with someone like Lox.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:22 PM

In fact, Keith, when Lox made the same assertion about potential growth in the straight population at 08:41, you said "fair point"

Do you agree or not?

If not then say so and say why.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:18 PM

Ake

96% refers to the number of homosexual men in the UK who do not have HIV.

I provided the link earlier in this thread.


You may have miissed it as you had your fingers in your ears.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:14 PM

No GfS, you really are every bit as stupid as you sound.

They are more aware than most of the risk they take with dangerous practices.

Penetrative sex with a condom is safe.

Penetrative sex without a condom is dangerous.

It is dangerous whether or not you are gay or straight.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:08 PM

Shit for brains Ake - happy with my language now.

I have been reading the Unaids African homosexual infection rates and they range from 15%---40% of the entire homosexual population.

Jesus you are one thick son of a bitch

Arican HIV prevalence is at 15-40% of TOTAL ADULT POPULATIONS.

So if only 15-40% of gay populations are affected then you have successfully proven that there is no difference in risk or exposure between gay men and straight people.

Well done, all your arguments demolished, now piss off.

Keith:

I, and others, have set out our clear and lucid grounds for assertions.

It is not good enough for you to sit there saying "la la la la, not listening..."

If you think my assertions or my gounds are wrong then say so, and say why. Otherwise you have no credibility whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 02:04 PM

Royston, Did you leave out her..."....are probably more aware than most of the risks they take with dangerous practices."

Dangerous practices, Sherlock! Now re-read my earlier reply. It may all come to you(I doubt it, though).
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:57 PM

Keith, sorry the second part of your earlier message. The first was about epidemiology in sexual minorities, which I answered.

The second part, about the rising number just of british-acquired heterosexual diagnoses;

We have 1,130 cases in 2008. A 500% increase from 2000.

In 2016, if that continues and all other factors are equal, we have about 6,000 cases every year.

In 2024, if that continues and all other factors are equal, we have over 30,000 cases each year.

But, Keith, you damn well know that in epidemioloy, the rate of new infection is not linear. As the pool of carriers grows, so the rate of transmission increases and the line bends towards exponentiality.

Add in the African-acquired cases now part of the UK pool of carriers and it is reasonable to assert the possibility of a much bigger future hazard than the figure above suggest.

I think that it is a credible assertion of a real potential future outcome based on simple science. Do you dispute that? If you do then say so and say why.

Note, also, that the WHO does not say there cannot or will not be a serious problem for straight people in the developed world, they just say it is unlikely to be on the same scale as in Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:56 PM

Lox, re your "As more people become infected, more people will be at risk, so the rate of increase will also increase."
If this were happening we would be seeing an exponential increase.
That is not what the figures show.
We see a slow, linear increase of around 200 per year.

That makes hetero acquired HIV an incredibly rare disease and likely to remain a rare disease for at least a century.
That accords well with WHO appraisal I provided yesterday.

It is only contradicted by that multi-polymath expert on everything Royston.
I doubt WHO and UNAIDS are tearing up their reports on his account though.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:47 PM

Royston...To what does your 96 % relate?

I have been reading the Unaids African homosexual infection rates and they range from 15%---40% of the entire homosexual population.

In fact the infection rates everywhere seem much higher in percentage terms among homosexuals than heteros?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:45 PM

Royston, re your post to me.
My only problem with your first paragraph is the expression "your WHO expert."
It should of course be "the WHO expert" i.e. the Head of WHO Aids Department.
All the rest I knew already and is not at all contentious to me or anyone else here I am sure.
You then talk about what I am saying "with all my scientific knowledge"
That is where we differ.
I have no specialist knowledge of this. That is why I rely so heavily on the opinions of genuine experts in the field.(How you ridiculed me for quoting experts!) And guess what Royston.
None of them agree with you.
And that is why I am certain that you are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:44 PM

Ake,

Link please.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:41 PM

"Increasing by 300 a year it will be a rare disease for another 140 years."

As more people become infected, more people will be at risk, so the rate of increase will also increase.

You will not see a steady 300 per year, but a similar percentage each year, itself increasing slightly as the pool of vulnerable young girls gets having unprotected sexgets proportionately smaller.

10% of young women have chlamydia.

thats around 300,000.

around the same number as think you can't get pregnant standing up.

And I would argue, probably the same number of women that could eventually be infected with HIV if nothing is done to change young peoples habits.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:40 PM

Wrong Royston..It means that they have come to the conclusion that the policies you advocate are failing and that "more effective preventive measures(which are inextricably linked with treatment and care) be taken among groups with higher prevalences"


"Independently of human rights"

I notice your attitude and language are not quite so vicious when your back is to the wall.......Typical of a bully!

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:34 PM

No, GfS, another case of you hearing what you want to hear.

MP said that "at risk" groups were more aware of the risks of risky practices. Nobody here disputes that. Unprotected penetrative sex is what spreads HIV. Gay men are probably more aware of that truth than are some other groups. Unprotected penetrative sex is risky for everyone - gay or straight. For some reason that I can't fathom a lot of people - gay or straight - have unprotected penetrative sex.

You wish that MP had said "Gay men are inherently risky", but that is not what she said.

96% of gay men are perfectly safe and healthy.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:26 PM

" "Independently of human rights, there is a clear and strong public health rationale for effective
prevention among men who have sex with men and transgender people. If we want to prevent
HIV infections, it is essential that more effective prevention efforts (which are inextricably linked
with treatment and care) among groups with higher prevalences be undertaken."

Please read, digest and try to comprehend what this means...thank you. "


Ok, I did.

I see no recommendation that Gay human rights be curtailed.

I see no recommendation that Gays should be quarantined or subjected to compulsory testing.

I do read that there is concern that prevention efforsts so far are not as effective as they need to be.

I also read that treatment and care need to involve a higher emphasis on prevention than is currently the case.


Finally, I also note that you have provided a quote without providing a link, so we can have no iidea of what came before or after.

Consequently we can have no clue what the context is or what was meant in relation to the phrase "independently of human rights".

Depending on what came before, this could mean many things.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:10 PM

mauvepink; "To be honest I think that intravenous drug users, bisexuals and homosexuals, are probably more aware than most of the risks they take with dangerous practices."

THANK YOU, mp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's beyond belief that the ones in here don't agree with you!
Don't believe me??......just scroll back!

As far as I'm concerned, ALL promiscuity is also a 'dangerous practice', and a foolish, destructive one, at that!..Just ask the children of a home broken because of it. Just ask yourselves, of the time wasted in your lives, over coming it, or the 'No-Where Land' you ended up, pursuing it!!!

THANK YOU< ONCE AGAIN, MP!!!
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 01:04 PM

Ake, most people here have at least a double digit IQ and understand exactly what that means.

More outreach, more education, more condoms, more care.

It,s now isn't that what the liberals have been saying all along?

Have you made a cash donation to those organisations I pointed out yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:59 PM

keith, your WHO expert says that AIDS prevalence rates are, most importantly of all the factors, driven by sexual networks. Like prostitutes and their punters, like migratory labour displacement, like sexual minorities. That is to say like gay communities.

I explained this ages ago, gave a numeric example of a theoretical situation, challenged you to correct me. You ran away then, you are still running away.

It is basic epidemiology; are you actually saying, with all your scientific knowledge, that you think I am wrong in asserting what I do on this issue? If you are, say so and say why.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: akenaton
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 12:52 PM

From UNAIDS.

"Independently of human rights, there is a clear and strong public health rationale for effective
prevention among men who have sex with men and transgender people. If we want to prevent
HIV infections, it is essential that more effective prevention efforts (which are inextricably linked
with treatment and care) among groups with higher prevalences be undertaken."

Please read, digest and try to comprehend what this means...thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 11:26 AM

Lox, re. what is a signicant number.
1200 infections a year is only 0.002%

That is three thousand, five hundred percent less than the 0.07% limit for classifying as a rare disease.

Increasing by 300 a year it will be a rare disease for another 140 years.
Then we should start to get worried.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 10:54 AM

Royston, how can you make a statement like "That is the only reason gay men in the west are disproportionately represented."
How do you know that?
I have learned a lot ovet the last few days, but I have seen nothing to support that. Please put up some evidence or withdraw.

I find it hard to believe because AIDS has been in the West for over 30 years.
De Cock says he is not expecting a comparable heterosexual epidemic.
None of the experts I have come across do.
Only you Royston.
What do you know that they do not?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 09:46 AM

thank you, Lox, for explaining that. As I said weeks ago, as Kevin de Cock says, it is all about sexual networks and how tight they are. That is the only reason gay men in the west are disproportionately represented. It appeared in that group, it can't readily break out and in such a tight and closed network, the infection and disease is hot-housed.

That straight, white people have managed a 500pc increase from such a ow starting pool of carriers in a big and wide open transmission network is appalling. Something caring needs to be done about it. Like a general education program.

It also shows that there must, on the terms of Ake, GfS et al, be something quite appalling about contemporary heterosexual practice. If of course they are consistent and not just homophobic bigots.

Keith, I am glad that you are finally coming to the realisation that the 'liberal' argument here is proven to be justified. It does nothing to reduce the utter contempt in which I hold you for your wrong-minded and malicious efforts to prove something entirely different.

Please tell me why you do this, if you are not a bigot? What is your point in all this?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 08:58 AM

Fair comment Lox.
Also, I found the breakdown for hetero infection UK and it does not follow US pattern of mostly high risk types.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 08:41 AM

"Don't want to mislead anybody."

Yet your percentage is nevertheless misleading.

Not because there is a 3 or a 4 at the end, but because 250 people being infected with HIV a year is still a significant number.

It is a small enough number that the networking that royston speaks of has not come into play yet.

And if the population of England were infinite then we could probably predict a consistent rise of 250 per year for ever for that reason.

However, this is not the case.

The pool has gradually become more polluted, and inevitably, the numbers have started to rise, and the rate of that rise has been comparatively pretty dramatic.

If it increases by another 500% then we will have in excess of 6,000 UK acquired heterosexual infections a year.

As long as 60% of teenagers continue to have unprotected sex, and as long as the public remains ignorant about sexual health, there is no reason to believe that there will be any decrease or reversal of this recent trend.

Finally, it is misleading to compare homosexuals to the entire population of Britain.

They are a single demographic WITHIN society, so should be compared to other demographics within society.

A good place to start would be adolescent girls and young women, who make up about 3 and a half millon each.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 08:07 AM

It has been a long week.
You will have all spotted that it should be 0.0004%

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:52 AM

Sorry, 3 should be a 4.
Don't want to mislead anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:50 AM

250 out of 60 million is 0.00000003 %

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:46 AM

At the start of the period, the risk of heterosexual infection was comparable to being struck by lightning.
An infinitesimal risk.
A couple of hundred out of a population of 60 million could reasonably be described as an infintesimal proportion.
It has risen rapidly but is still a tiny proportion.
Also, in America, this group are not you average heterosexuals.
Their partners are overwhelmingly drug injectors or some other high risk category.
I can not find the breakdown for UK, but why would it be different?

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Lox
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 07:30 AM

Sorry Keith,

Lets concentrate on what the 500% increase actually shows.

The figures for low domestic heterosexual transmission go back a long way, with a recent and comparatively sudden increase of 500% in the last few years.

That clearly shows a significant change of circumstances.

In addition,

The numbers of domestically infected heterosexuals may have been low, but to describe it as having been infinitesimally low is grossly inaccurate.

On both those bases, your parallel is wrong.


Furthermore, just as your figures have been posted to illustrate that homosexuals proportionately suffer more from HIV, the 500% figure is important as it shows that proportionately, non drug-abusing non African heterosexuals are the fastest rising demographic.


There's cool unbiased statistical analysis for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: GUEST,mauvepink
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:42 AM

To be honest I think that intravenous drug users, bisexuals and homosexuals, are probably more aware than most of the risks they take with dangerous practices. Their various communities and support networks have spent lots of money on education projects and the likes.

Where the great damger lies is in the percentage of straight folks who still see HIV/AIDS as a gay disease or a disease of intravenous drugs users. So many think it cannot happen to them because they are straight. So many discount any chance of acquiring HIV/AIDS because they are not in a high risk group. In fact, they are! Anyone having unprotected sex is risking all sorts of things and until ALL people recognises that no-one is immune to this threat then the figures will continue to rise.

The sooner the myth of it being a gay disease is got rid of, and people who are not gay start thinking they are just as easily a target for the disease, then we may have a start in seeing a reduction in new infections.

HIV/AIDS could not give a monkey's curse what sexuality or colour or religious persuasion the person is whose body it gets into. It does not read books and does not know statistical analysis. The thread has now become al about statistics, but that undertow of current is still dragging some folks under that this disease would go away if gay folks stopped having sex. It won't. This is NOT a gay issue and, even if at first it had been here in the western world, it most certainly is not now. Stop blaming gay folks. Take off the straight blinkers, because they will kill you, as the basic premise on which you are basing straight sex as being fine is very flawed. ALL unsafe sex is risky, dangerous sex. Some types may be a little more risky than others but it matters not. This is everyone's problem if they do not have safe sex.

Statistical arguments aside... Why are we still scapegoating gay men on this? The FACTS about the disease as it is NOW is what is important. As was said much earlier in the thread by someone with sense...

The disease does not discriminate: why should we?

mp

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 06:23 AM

In USA, and probably here too, most heterosexual infections are from high risk group, i.e. where the partner is an intravenous drug user or bisexual.
Such people would benefit from the targeted intervention we have been discussing.

Subject: RE: BS: Death penalty for homosexuality?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 29 Jan 10 - 03:52 AM

The 500% figure is so high because it is a rise from a tiny initial number.
My description of it as an increase from infinitesimal to miniscule conveys more clearly the true situation.
That is not to say that the rise is not worrying and should not be addressed.