Are gays vectors for disease

There are none. Keeping in mind that having an existing STD increases the risk of contracting HIV, it's essential to prioritize protection during every intimate encounter. This narrative obfuscates the humanity of the gay movement, the splintering and infighting, and most of all the radicalism.

Gay and bisexual men should understand that body fluids like semen are vectors for spreading HIV, which makes safe sex practices critically important. The toxicity of AZT is now widely accepted, [13] yet the actions of GaG are still seen as unacceptable and their reputation is still one of fringe subversives.

MSM have higher rates of syphilis and make up more than half of all new HIV infections. In particular, Wellcome funded several HIV education pamphlets, including one with over 9 pages about the benefits of AZT and only one page on alternative treatments. Introducing: Gays Against Genocide.

This belief was further shattered by the French Concorde study, the largest study of AZT to date with patients. STD implies that the infection has led to some symptom of disease. All my friends who took AZT are dead. How do you explain that? It was the anger of gay men who felt unrepresented, who held legitimate fears for their own mortality and felt visceral frustration towards healthcare providers who seemed to flippantly change their advice.

Radical versus assimilationist, mainstream versus fringe, queer versus homosexual. Their presence destabilizes an equilibrium built on shared fears of transmission. Health disparities among young and emerging adult gay men are well-documented 37, 41; however, the mechanisms and pathways (eg, biological, psychological, and/or sociologic mediators) linking sexual orientation to differential health outcomes remain poorly understood.

It is the same energy that fuelled Russell T. The critics of GaG and similar groups tend to overlook the human element of their concerns. Listening to the testimony of those affected reintroduces complexity to this narrative; the Wellcome open forum on AZT in is particularly insightful.

Originally an abandoned cancer treatment, AZT was proposed as a potential HIV treatment by Wellcome — a larger American company with a UK-based trust dedicated to medical research — in Wellcome benefited enormously from this breakthrough. We became a disease, we became ugly, we became wrong.

Unfortunately, this history was not as simple as some would like it to be. They wanted to protect their biggest revenue. The drug is extremely toxic, causing cell depletion in bone marrow meaning patients could need frequent blood transfusions to survive, and the general side effects greatly mimicked symptoms of advancing AIDS.

In this instance, GaG was scared, belittled, reactionary and unapologetically loud; the Trust followed current science and promoted treatment through corporate sponsors in Wellcome. There is no individual, only a vector of disease. Not acknowledging this fails both them as individuals and gay history as a whole.

Dangerous and dirty. Public attitudes towards the disease sentenced the HIV-positive to death upon diagnosis. Whilst a small difference in deaths, the Concorde study showed that at best AZT had no positive effect, and at worst it was accelerating mortality rates. Early HIV treatments such as azidothymidine AZT were contentious and often fatal — it was not a narrative of steady improvement with universal support, and the medicalisation of HIV was not universally accepted by a homogenous gay community.

The Trust is often posited as a hero in recent gay history. Whilst this is only one side of the story, the clash exposes the divergence between radical and mainstream gay activism: the overt campiness of a blow-up doll with an AZT necklace diametrically opposes an institution that feels secure enough to use the police against other gay men.

Anyone who has sex can get an STI. However, sexually active gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are at greater risk. The good homosexual feels secure in using an aggressive police force against disruptive members of their own community; the bad homosexual is justifiably punished.

For this to occur historians must distance themselves from narratives of good and bad homosexuals. Federal and state health officials are investigating an outbreak of meningococcal disease in Florida primarily infecting men who identify as gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men.

From this perspective, gay unity against HIV transmission was necessary for survival: the mainstream population indiscriminately persecuted all gay men regardless of their individual status, so eliminating the virus was viewed as a step towards delegitimising homophobia. In this climate of fear AZT was posited as the cure — a cure soon snatched away and labelled as more toxic than the disease itself.