He is correct that gay sex has potential health risks, particularly hepatitis and some other STD’s. a lot of his statistics and terminology is from the 1980’s and not in common use today. For example, “gay bowel syndrome” was abandoned as a diagnosis some time ago.
His basic premise is correct that risky sexual behavior has risks, as does smoking cigarettes, using drugs, and so on… Every physician should be opposed to unhealthy behavior, in my opinion. But I also think that it is a best practice to try to protect those who do engage in risky behavior, through education and treatment when necessary. Sometimes that means prophylactic assistance, in addition to advising against the behavior. Helping someone to stay healthy does not mean that one endorses the dangerous behavior.
On can be opposed to a war, for example, as being immoral, yet still provide armor and medical assistance to the combatants who sign up to fight the war. Not exactly analogous, but I hope it is close enough to see my point.
** HIV Infection and a New Look at Gay Bowel Syndrome**
%between% conservapedia.com/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png
Stylized rendering of a cross-section of the
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
A September 2010 report of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declared : “Gay,
bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by
HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990s. In 2006, MSM accounted for more than half (53%) of all new HIV infections in the United States…”
[12] In August of 2009, LifeSiteNews reported: “An official with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the CDC’s estimate Monday that in the
United States AIDS is fifty times more prevalent among men who have sex with men (‘MSM’) than the rest of the population.”
[13] On March 15, 2004
Medscape published an article entitled
New Look at “Gay Bowel Syndrome” by John G. Bartlett, M.D. which commented on the 2004 journal article
Etiology of clinical proctitis among men who have sex with men published by JD Klausner and C. Kent in the journal
Clinical Infectious Diseases. The Medscape article declared:
“ There were multiple studies of the newly recognized “gay bowel syndrome” in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, subsequent attention and study has been sparse, in part attributed to reduced frequency thought to reflect changing practices by gay men in response to the
HIV epidemic. This study clearly indicates that it is still an issue, since the cases were studied in 2001-2002. Also, the etiology is about the same as previously, although
HSV is newly recognized as an important component. This finding not only affects management but also has HIV prevention implications. The authors note that two thirds of the participants were HIV negative and that proctitis increases the risk of HIV by up to 9-fold.
[14]
Several countries are already offering additional incentives to couples willing to have children beyond the tax breaks already in place because their population is dying off faster than children are being born.
