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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

"most of the known cases in Europe have been among men who have sex with men"

Here we go again.

Can you clarify?

HIV was originally associated with gay men. Some people argue that society only started seeing it as a public health issue (as opposed to a disease that those evil people get) when it became clear that it was spreading from gay men to everyone else.

But we know that this doesn't just effect gay men and it's an older disease...it is just prominent in gay men. HIV is still to this day far more prevalent in the gay community than any other. You can speak about relevant facts on the ground without being a "bigot," it just means people need to be careful. There is no stigma here.

I'm pretty sure that HIV is more prevalent amongst heterosexual people than gay men. Unless you are saying that most Africans are gay, that most SE Asians are gay, and that most Papuans are gay (hint - they're not).

In most 1st world nations your assertion _may_ be true, but in Australia at least HIV is most prevalent in the needle sharing community.

My post was downvoted. Here's where the numbers are: https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet

It says:

New HIV infections have been reduced by 52% since the peak in 1997.

    In 2020, around 1.5 million [1.0 million–2.0 million] people were newly infected with HIV, compared to 3.0 million [2.1 million–4.2 million] people in 1997.
    Women and girls accounted for 50% of all new infections in 2020.

The assertion that 86% of new infections are in the gay community is false

I'm gay, and I downvoted you. Obviously transmission rates are very different around the world, but I'll just speak for the US: in the US the majority of new HIV infections are still men who have sex with men, with 66% of all cases and 81% of all men (and gay men make up 5-10% of men): https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat...

Heck, the reason I'm on PrEP, and the reason virtually every other sexually active, non-long-term-monogamous gay man I know is also on PrEP, is because I know my risk of HIV infection is an order of magnitude more than straight men.

Gay and bisexual men account for 66% of new HIV infections in the US, according to the CDC.

It's obviously different globally, where homophobia and prostitution mean different groups are vulnerable to HIV.

There are more heterosexuals than homosexuals. I am saying per capita it is very very disproportionate and that is backed up by the facts of the matter. There's no arguing against it. That doesn't mean being gay is wrong or anything of the sort, just that people in that community have to be more careful. The news reporting on that or on the monkeypox thing doesn't mean it's perpetuating some sort of bigotry, it is informing that community to be on the lookout and to be safe. Arguing against informing our gay counterparts/friends of a virus to be PC or whatever is detrimental to the health of people we care about.

Statistically speaking HIV isn't spreading through everyone else. It's still almost entirely a gay men and intravenous drug user disease. The idea that it's spread to everyone else is part of the mythology that was spread with the intent of getting the attention of the general public to help with funding/research/etc.

A quick search found that 86% of new HIV cases are among men who have sex with men. I couldn't find what % of the population is gay men, but all of LGBT makes up only 3-4% of the population.

There is practically zero risk of HIV to straight people who do not use iv drugs.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of new HIV cases are in Africa, amongst heterosexual clients of sex workers. Maybe your 86% figure might apply in countries like the US where health care is a privilege and not a right.

Your last sentence reminds me that COVID was going to be over by Christmas 2020...

How about the UK?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-hiv-diagnoses-in-gay-...

>A new report by Public Health England shows that for the first time the number of new HIV diagnoses in gay and bisexual men outnumber new diagnoses in heterosexual adults by only 100 cases.

So there's as many new HIV diagnoses among gay men as straight people, except gay men are only around 2% of the population. Notice you have to include all heterosexual people, not just the men, and it doesn't get up to just the cases among gay/bi men. The difference is staggering.

I'm sorry, but the real world data doesn't match the mythology around HIV. You are right about prostitutes though, I should've included that as a risk factor.

Does it surprise you that a sexually transmitted disease doesn't spread easily between people of different sexual orientations?

> gay men are only around 2% of the population

This is a dramatic underestimate by at least a factor of two. Only about 2% of boomers identify as gay, but it's five times that (or more!) if you ask younger generations. Unsurprisingly, younger folks have more sexual partners.

The general trend of the younger generations is towards fewer sex partners, not more. Millennials had fewer sex partners than their parents. Gen Z had fewer still. There's not great numbers on gen Alpha, but it's unlikely to have leaped past millennials.

All of LGBT combined is only about 3-4% of the population. I will grant you that it's entirely possible 90% of LGBT is gay/bi men. I don't know.

I can't find out the article, it was about the evolutionary advantage of having homosexual individuals in highly social species (penguins, wolves, cats), and the number was 4 to 5%. At that you can add dismorphia, heterosexuals with homosexual comportements and bisexuals, i wouldn't be surprised with a 10% figure.

Are those numbers from the same people that tricked you into believing that HIV was not primarily a disease among men who have sex with men?

I did not participate in the thread, i have no knowledge of HIV, so probably not.

I am however interested in social comportements in cats clowder/colonies (I'm from the countryside and i saw interesting comportements), and i am pretty sure i was researching information on homosexuality in cats due to homosexual comportements in two non-castrated cats from the clowder (we called it a gang). I found interesting articles about hormonal triggers during pregnancy (a bit disproven by homosexuality amongst penguins imho, but I'm not a researcher), and multiple studying homosexuality amongst social animals in multiple settings. I'm sure about the 4 to 5%, the rest is bad extrapolation and shouldn't be taken into account (i thought that was clear). Sorry if I ruffled your feathers.

Have a nice day!

I’m assuming this is a reference to the fact that AIDS was, initially, called “GRID” and well, stigmatizing disease or downplaying it as something that won’t happen to someone due to lifestyle differences does little but divide people and ignore the problem. Intercourse happens between people, and the emphasis that a certain type occurs more frequently with a specific demographic shouldn’t change anything.

> The cause of the disorder is unknown. Researchers call it A.I.D., for acquired immunodeficiency disease, or GRID, for gay-related immunodeficiency. It has been reported in 20 states and seven countries. [0]

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/11/science/new-homosexual-di...

Before “GRID” it was called “gay pneumonia.”

It took about two years to figure out it was being spread sexually.

Doesn’t change the fact that promiscuous sexual activity among gay men is how monkey pox currently spreads. Of course that could change once there are more cases.

Makes you wonder why there are no lockdowns for the types of gay venues and events that have been identified as ground zero for the disease.

because lockdowns discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation are likely going to be challenged legally in almost all democratic countries, and rightfully so by the way. Reminds me of calls to 'intern' gay men in the 80s here in Germany during the AIDS panic by some politicians.

Draconian, but might have saved quite a few lifes. Don’t remember anyone panicking though. People quickly realised that attracting HIV is highly unlikely outside of high-risk groups, ie sexually active gays and needle sharing drug addicts. Apparently, nobody in the gay scene was panicking either. Why else did HIV continue to spread to a point where a large proportion of gay men carry the virus nowadays?

Are you arguing that closing sex-on-premises businesses unfairly target homosexuals?

> promiscuous sexual activity among gay men is how monkey pox currently spreads

This is the objectively false messaging the parent comments are noting. There is nothing about this virus that makes gay men a uniquely potent vector for transmission. It's not how this virus is spreading, it's how it has spread in one case. It's a well-researched virus and the means that it propagates is well understood—nothing about the science requires gay people to be discriminated against.

If you wanted lockdowns, perhaps we should start with the sorts of places where people sit near each other for hours, eat and drink, and shake hands. We can start with churches.

https://www.advocate.com/news/2022/5/23/monkeypox-outbreak-l...

HIV is also thought to have originated via zoonotic transmission from non-human primates. Or it could be a reference to the claim that such diseases are used to create unfair stigma for the communities via which they are promulgated.

Is that not an objective statement? I'm aware of the controversy, but that doesn't mean we should ignore facts.

I think you read more than he said. I'm not sure what Animats meant, but I don't think he said whatever you're responding to.

Could it be in reference to the AIDS epidemic, with quotes such as this classifying the early days of that?

I don't think he said anything that merits more than a "what do you mean?" in response.

So I ask this person too, "what do you mean?"

The problem with that messaging is it’s hard to take back. Even in 2022, I have straight friends who regularly have unprotected sex with random women and don’t think HIV applies to them because they’re not gay.

I'm a gay man, and I'm on PrEP because I know I'm at higher risk of HIV. If I were straight and (1) neither I nor my partners used IV drugs, (2) neither I nor my partners had any visible STDs and I got checked for STDs regularly and (3) I were circumcized, to be honest I'd be fine having unprotected sex with random women because my chance of acquiring HIV would be exceedingly, exceedingly low. My chance of acquiring other STDs, especially Chlamydia, would be much higher, but if I were getting checked regularly it seems like a reasonable risk for a treatable disease.

> ...and (3) I were circumcized,...

Does circumcision actually have a non-neglible impact on the risk? From what I remember, it is insignificant, at best.

Circumcision provides a very large protective effect. Circumcized males are 2 to 8 times less likely to contract HIV: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1127372/

You can Google for other studies - the protective effect of circumcision is significant and large.

I am on prep too but still there’s a difference between consciously accepting a certain level of risk vs just assuming the risk is nonexistent because of poorly communicated information

It's a coincidence not a causality. Some could have happened on a "straight" rave.

Exactly. Cant even enforce a lockdown this time for this. More lockdown == more sex with whoever is in sight.

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