Antiretroviral therapy (ART) was introduced 25 years ago, and thus there are now millions living with AIDS rather than dying from AIDS. ART is even providing protection for those who don’t yet have HIV infection. That’s good, right? Not so fast.
JAMA, July 25, 2012: “In the United States, 1.2 million people are estimated to be living with HIV infection—20% are unaware of their infection—and about 50,000 people are estimated to become infected each year. The cumulative number of AIDS deaths is approaching 650,000. The most severely affected groups include men who have sex with men, blacks, and Hispanics or Latinos.”
Plus, ART doesn’t remove the increase in heart disease, cancer, dementia, low bone mass, co-infections with other venereal diseases and psychological problems of AIDS patients, plus a sense of invulnerability has returned and young gay men are back to the irresponsible, casual sex habits of the men who spread the epidemic back in the 1970s and 1980s.
This is fuzzy, but the top blue line is those living with undiagnosed HIV infection. The flat red line at the bottom is AIDS deaths.
There are two articles in this special JAMA issue on HIV/AIDS (July 25, 2012) that deal with the future. Would you believe neither suggest celibacy or chastity as weapons in this battle? Yet both are completely effective. Monogamy and marriage will not eliminate this scourge as long as gay men continue to bring the disease to the marriage bed and infect women, who in turn infect children.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment