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Gay and bi men more likely to have HIV

By Michael Lehet, August 30, 2009 at 10:26 pm
AIDS Ribbon

Another report out of last weeks National HIV Prevention Conference is showing that gay and bisexual men account for half of all new HIV infections in the US and have an AIDS rate 50 times greater than other groups.

Here's some information direct from the Washington Blade:

Dr. Amy Lansky of the CDC presented research at the Aug. 24 plenary in which the CDC estimated in the U.S. there were 692.2 new HIV cases in 2007 per 100,000 men who have sex with men.

While the CDC data has continually reported gay and bisexual men and other MSM of all races as the groups with the highest numbers of new HIV cases each year, AIDS activists said this was the first time the CDC clearly stated with a concrete rate how the disease is impacting gay and bisexual men. Gay and bisexual men are also the only risk group in which new infections are increasing.

"They have never converted the numbers into a rate," said Walt Senterfitt of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project. Senterfitt is an epidemiologist.

"It's not like this is totally new information. But they are saying now that gay, bisexual and other MSM are 50 times more likely to have AIDS than women and non-gay or bisexual men. This is a new statement. We weren't able to make that equivalent before. We can now compare apples to apples. We represent the largest proportion."

You can read the full story here.

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Filed under: Health

Tags: aids, health news, hiv, WBTD archives

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