Health : HIV in the US
The Centers for Disease Control has published data on the rates of HIV infection in men who have sex with men in the United States. This data, from 2009 (the most up-to-date data available from the CDC) was collected from the 40 states and 5 dependent areas that have name-based reporting. The rates of HIV infection for those over 13 years old exposed to HIV through sex with another man continue to increase, with 74% of all diagnosed HIV infections being in men who have sex with men.
Black/African American men who have sex with men carry the greatest HIV burden, with 42% of diagnosed HIV being in Black/African American men, while 36% of diagnosed infections were in whites.
HIV infection rates were greatest in men between 25 and 34 years old, followed by the youngest group, those between the ages of 13 and 24.
The fight against HIV and AIDS is far from over!
Stephan
However, despite these statistics, you cannot be online without seeing / being propositioned by some “DDF” idiots who want to bareback. In my book, DDF in this case means “Deranged, demented, fuck-heads”… If you are so into bareback, find a sero-equal partner and have monogamous fun. On a separate note, all the DDF guys tend to have never tested, or have been STD tested YEARS ago…
Its stunning how young the men are that are getting infected
The HIV/AIDS crisis is something that everyone needs to continue to be educated about. One thing that is unfortuneate is the Hatred, Racism, Ignorance & Negativity that has come about because of this crisis. I am a longterm survivor 20+ years and have seen and heard it all. Unfortuneately on sites such as A4A. I have been reluctant in the past to disclose my status because of this ignorance. I like everyone want love and compassion in my life. I now use the word UNDECTECTABLY HEALTHY in my profile, which should hopefully raise a questionable thought in the minds of those who read. A person that is UNDECTABLE is a person that is NOT contagious and is just as healthy as a non HIV+ person. I think this is important for people to know. Hopefully the ignorance will start to dissapear. Yes we still need to play safe and assume that everyone is Positive. People lie all the time. But education, understanding, compassion is always welcome
The fight against HIV / AIDS has been made harder by those who promote barebacking as some sort of reasonable thing to do with strangers and it has been deeply hampered by those who fight those who promote safer sex and instead prefer to promote the myth that becoming poz is not a big deal.
I get sick when I read having HIV is as as easy to deal with as having diabetes and the medications are 100% safe.
This is one of the most dangerous lies the Gay community has had to face because people are still dying from HIV/ AIDS related illnesses, and not all people can tolerate the medications, in fact some people even have fatal side effects!
Until we have a honest conversation about the fact that their are people out there who could care less who they hurt, that there is a subculture of Gay men deliberately getting infected and infecting others, and that safer sex has become the exception and not the norm among Gay men of all ages NOTHING is going to change.
Prevention of HIV / AIDS can happen but only once you get past the liars who for whatever reason have this insane idea that testing and early meds should take the place of using condoms 100% of the time and knowing the status of your sexual partner 100% of the time.
Dang. We have to make sure we’re wraped up.
Black/African American men have the greates burden? Please stop making it seem like Blacks are the worse off, I know far more White men that have HIV/Aids than I do Blacks.
How many of the Whites doctors are actually reporting their cases? Some of the Blacks that are being infected are being infected thru drugs not male to male sex, I wish they’d get the facts straight.
Blacks have so much discrimation in the gay world because of reports or studies like this. Read some of the online post in chat rooms or pick up rooms, no one wants a Black guy for fear of catching some disease.
I wish reporting like this against Blacks would stop, it’s making it so hard to find a decent guy to date or find a simple hookup if you’re into the interacial thing.
Whites make up about the same HIV rates as Blacks and Latinos, it just goes under reported.
Not that its perfect and 100% safe, but that is why I only suck dick. I jerk off to the idea of the rest.
Should this be a surprise to anyone?
With the relaxing of safe sex mores among gay men of all ages, but especially younger men, and with the near ubiquity of bareback porn priming us to fuck bare, it’s a 2+2=4 kind of equation.
The fight against HIV starts with personal choices and a collective will among gay men to protect each other. Sadly, so many gay men no longer care about protecting themselves or their brothers.
So we have another entire generation that will live with and die from HIV.
It’s tragic but entirely preventable.
It’s time the CDC, AIDS organizations, and gay men’s groups speak up against this rash of very bad behavior. It’s killing our community.
Bareback = Death.
The article sounds scary, if it were true. No one knows what the rates of hiv infection are becasue no reliable hiv test exists. Neither the elisa nor the western blot test detects hiv, only non specific anti-bodies that are not unique to hiv. There are at least 70 known conditions that have been proven to trigger false positives. Pregnancy, flu shots, lupus, the common cold, the flu, liver disease, just to name a few, all trigger false positives. In addition, the makers of the tests admit a positive test is not proof of an active hiv infection. The tests are worthless junk.
hope u guys post more like this. very informative! people should read
First off we need to establish a centralized code for tracking and categorizing both HIV infection and AIDS cases…at this point in time of this epidemic we should be able to chart the rate of infection anywhere in the US down to a city block. This less is more attitude we have about government is not always a good thing. A strong centralized government following these type of things is better then 100 different state and local governments following it(or choosing not to follow it!)
I’m 24 and african american. Having been infected by someone I met through this site who lied about their status, yea, i know the fight against HIV is far from over.
On the other hand, it would be great if you people would educate yourselves about the fact that the research into finding a CURE is looking better than ever, and the first person to ever be cured was announced earlier this year. His name is Timothy Brown, aka, ‘the berlin patient’. It’s real. So anyway.
It’s sad how so many of the people here post things like “DDF and you be too” in their profile, when they’re the one’s who are passing the virus around.
Again, Stephan, (I have the same name btw), please do me a favor and look up “timothy brown” and do a post about the hope for a cure being more real now than ever before. I think it would serve the population of those of us on this site that deal with being persecuted day by day here to find out that there is truly hope now that HIV will no longer be a life long curse.
Please consider it… we know that it’s out there, and that it’s bad. Trust me. I get a sense that I’m nothing short of SATAN on here… by the way people fear it. But the fact of the matter is that I am no different than anyone else, I was Negative for more than 24 years of my 24 and 11 months of life that I’ve lived. I know live because of the hope for a cure. I think it is up to people like you who have a voice on sites like this to spread more than just fear to those who are neg (so far), but hope to those who are poz (now)!!
Thanks,
Stephan
I can understand the increase…you have more people have LIE about their status, have sex RAW, or just dont care “only living for now, not later on.”
What’s really sad is that Goverment funded agencies, such as the CDC, doesn’t give a damn about minorities, for if they did the satistics data would be more current and therefore more accurate; here it is almost 2012 and the most recent data is from 2009, what a fucking joke. But, on the other hand, we have to ask ourselves the question why should they care when we, ourselves, don’t care for each other.
I can totally agree with most of the comments on here but HIV is being passed from people who lie about their status. The people that are afraid to tell people their status are the ones spreading the disease but you cant just blame them. I tell everyone to treat everyone like that they have the virus and wear condoms all the time especially here in NYC. NYC is full of liars on this site if you look at it its a very small amount of people that post their status or post no status on their profile i commend them for being honest knowing that NYC has the highest rates of HIV cases in the US. Its alot of whores here and they are in denial in NYC cause they dont want anyone to know the truth so sad NYC needs a reality check if everyone told the truth on here 95 percent of the ads would say poz thats why i tell most neg people in NYC thats its likely they have slept with someone poz..Oh i forgot another reason because everyone here is afraid of a one on one honest relationship they only wanna sleep with you once then move on to the next person i guess so they dont have to tell anyone their status.
some guys lie and make every effort to bareback.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK – AWARENESS/EDUCATION is KEY!!! (the other blogs if anything confuse your message…)
Akhenaten: our blog posts are various. Health is one topic we cover, but we also like to talk about sex, fashion, relationships etc…
I was infected by someone on A4A
This is fucked. I don’t think I’ll ever have sex again.