The World Health Organization is reporting that the rate of HIV infection among young gays is growing so rapidly the agency is recommending for the first time that men who have sex with men take anti-viral drugs as a preventative.
Gay men in their twenties are too young to remember the panic in the gay community when HIV/AIDs was first discovered in the 1980s. With the advent of anti-viral drugs that make HIV, at least until the disease mutates, chronic but manageable, young men may be taking more chances sexually. Couple that with the general belief among all young men that they are immortal, along with the adventurous sexual lives of gay men, and you have a recipe for the current explosion.
The WHO announced, “Rates of HIV infection among men who have sex with men remain high almost everywhere, and new prevention options are urgently needed.” WHO reports that men who have sex with men are 19 times more likely to become infected with HIV than the general population and that those who are transgender are almost 50 times more likely.
Breitbart News reported in May that the sometimes-deadly disease of syphilis was exploding in the United States, with most of the explosion happening in the gay community.
Researcher Dale O’Leary, reporting in the prestigious Linacre Quarterly, says the problem of sexually transmitted diseases in the gay community is such that scientists are calling it not an epidemic or a pandemic but a “syndemic,” a linked set of health issues involving two or more afflictions acting in concert within a specific population. According to the medical literature, among men who have sex with men this includes syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV but also such pathologies as partner violence, drug abuse, and psychological disorders.
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