tdaxp

"South Dakota HIV/AIDS: Mid Year Surveillance Report," South Dakota Department of Health, July 2005, pg 3.

"Internet, meth double HIV rate in S. Dakota," by Corrine Olson, Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 16 July 2005, http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050716/NEWS/507160318/1001.
HIV is increasing in South Dakota, the Internet?

 

 

Intravenous use of methamphetamine and people hooking up with anonymous sex partners on the Internet have doubled the HIV rate in South Dakota, worrying health officials.

 

 

If the Argus is blaming an electronic communication medium, why they don't blame roads, a physical communication medium, is beyond me.

 

 

Kightlinger said some people also view the disease as one that infects only gay people. Since 2002 in South Dakota, 37 percent of cases have been from heterosexual contact, primarily women exposed by a partner.

Cheryl O'Brien, the Sioux Falls School District's coordinator for high school curriculum, said the district is trying to educate young people about the dangers of the virus and how to avoid contracting HIV and AIDS.

 

 

Well, as homosexualism and illegal needle drugs together account for 65% of HIV/AIDS cases in South Dakota, and 75% naturally, avoiding just two activities would cause the infection rate to plunge...

We can effectively end injection drug use as a vector for HIV / AIDS by ending the drug war.

 

Anyway, just remember: there are no innocent victims of homosexualism

 

"Health Department: HIV/AIDS cases up in 2004 in Minnesota," Associated Press, 15 April 2005, http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D89G036O0.

The Associated Press - Friday, April 15, 2005

As a people-killer spreads in Minnesota

More than 300 people in Minnesota were diagnosed with HIV last year, an 11 percent increase over 2003, the state Health Department reported Friday.

The AP waits until paragraph seven to state the main vector

The department continued to find disproportionally high numbers of cases among gay and bisexual men. During the past three years, the group has accounted for 50 percent of all diagnoses although they account for only 5 percent of the population.

That rate is roughly in keeping with national trends.

What aggrevates me is that the lower something appears in a news story, the more likely it is to be cut. The AP wrote the article so the homosexualism angle would be the one most likely to be left out.

If that's not intellectual dishonesty, it's close.

"CDC-NCHSTP-DHAP: HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report - Volume 14- Table 1," Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats/hasr1402/table1.htm, 24 October 2003.

"Want my Bone Marrow?," Cracking my Vain Pot, http://vainpot.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/01/31/do_u_want_my_bone_marrow.html, 31 January 2005.

In a radically irresponsible tale of medical insanity and donated bone marrow, fellow blogspiriter "Cracked" writes

But whilst filling in our forms, a big-fond sentence stared back at me: People at risk of HIV.AIDS infection are not permitted to donate bone marrow. Need to guess what their definition of being at risk? Men having sex with other men.

BUT WHY?

Surely you HAVE to screen EVERYONE for all sort of nasty bugs before ANY transfusion, regardless of sexual preferences?! Is it NOT far more important to access to as many potential donors as possible? Surely str8 people get HIV too? Can't RISK be redefined as "People engaged in unsafe sex"?

What if I AM that 1 in a 1,000,000 person who has the same HLA blood type as that Asian lymphoma kid on the poster?

I grieved not so much of the discrimination, as the good that I'd have done.

Now, considering new HIV cases look something like this



One might want to do some rational risk assessment. One might want to ponder how a statistically tiny minority can be so responsible for brining such a terrible plague to our shores. One might ponder through what measures the government has nearly obliterated transfusions as a source of HIV.

Or one might chose to push a political agenda.

Homosexuality is no more a "sin" that manic-depressiveness. It is not condemned in the Bible as it did not exist in biblical times. The "religious right's" crusade against it is misguided, if ultimately useful.

But that does not distract from the need to stop a plague. And the plague must be stopped even if someone is offended or if someone's feelings are hurt.