One in Five Homosexual/Bisexual Men Have HIV, Nearly Half Don’t Know
Via WebMD — ONE IN FIVE gay/bisexual men in the 21 U.S. cities hardest hit by AIDS have HIV infections — and nearly half don’t know it, a CDC survey finds.
Black gay/bi men and under-30 gay/bi adults are least likely to know of their HIV infections.
The findings show that HIV infection rates remain strikingly high among gay and bisexual men, says Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, director of the CDC’s center for HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, STD, and TB prevention.
“The number of new HIV infections each year is increasing among men who have sex with men [MSM], while remaining stable or decreasing in other groups,” Fenton said in a statement. “Currently, MSM account for nearly half of the more than 1 million people living with HIV in the United States.”
To get these numbers, CDC teams visited bars, dance clubs, and other venues frequented by gay and bisexual men in the 21 cities with the highest number of AIDS cases. They interviewed 8,153 self-identified gay and bisexual men who agreed to undergo HIV testing.
The findings:
- 19% of the men tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
- 28% of black, 18% of Hispanic, and 16% of white men tested positive for HIV.
- 44% of the men who tested positive for HIV had been unaware of their infection.
- 59% of black, 46% of Hispanic, and 26% of white men who tested positive for HIV were unaware of their infection.
- 63% of the HIV-positive men age 18-29 were unaware of their infection.
Read the full article at WebMD
“To get these numbers, CDC teams visited bars, dance clubs, and other venues frequented by gay and bisexual men in the 21 cities with the highest number of AIDS cases. ” I’m sure if you were to go down to predominantly straight bars, clubs and other party establishments “in cities with the highest number of AIDS cases” you’d find a much higher incidence of HIV among these straight men and women than in the general population, too. As a gay man myself and having lots of gay friends, I can say with some confidence that the vast majority of gay men do not attend such establishments; the statistics clearly cannot be extrapolated to all gay men. It is blatantly not true that “One in Five Homosexual/Bisexual Men Have HIV” and… Read more »
Iddles, the CDC is a more direct target for your anger and your rebuttal of their findings. The owner of this website posted the findings without comment, using the same title that was used on the medical website (WebMD) from which it was taken.