Hiv Infections Among Gay Black Men May Be Leveling Off

[seaguy]

http://news.yahoo.com/hiv-infections-gay-black-men-may-leveling-off-002237760.html

[wood]

good news, considering how dis-proportionally black MSM are affected.  I wonder also how much PrEP has to do with this.  

 

It will be very interesting to see where infection rates go over the next few years as PrEP use becomes more widespread. 

[BiAggieGuy]

Given the fact that almost all guys under 25 are fucking bare, I suspect in the short term we'll see an increase.  I haven't had to sweet talk any college boi in over a year to take my dick raw.

 

There was an article I saw on Fox News (article itself is by Reuters) about HIV rates amoung younger bi and gay guys.  It does talk about PrEP.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/12/07/unprotected-sex-more-common-among-young-gay-bi-men-with-detectable-hiv.html

[wood]

Given the fact that almost all guys under 25 are fucking bare, I suspect in the short term we'll see an increase.  I haven't had to sweet talk any college boi in over a year to take my dick raw.

 

There was an article I saw on Fox News (article itself is by Reuters) about HIV rates amoung younger bi and gay guys.  It does talk about PrEP.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/12/07/unprotected-sex-more-common-among-young-gay-bi-men-with-detectable-hiv.html

I somewhat agree here, but not completely.  For sure many guys are having unprotected sex, but it also doesn't say if its all the time or just sometimes.  I suspect people on this forum, myself included have a bias towards thinking everyone always has bareback sex, and I know from data and surveys thats not the case.  Is it common? sure, but it was also common 10 years ago. condom usage rates amount gay men peaked in the late 90's in the high 50% range.  Its now about 45%, and dropping.  The article like to point out that young guys with detectable viral loads are fucking raw, but i tend to suspect thats always been the case.  Remember until recently it was protocol to wait for CD4 counts to drop to around 500/400/350 to start treatment, thats no longer the case.  Those people waiting to go on treatment almost certainly had detectable viral loads, much like the ones not on treatment do now.  

 

There is a simple reason for this part of the article,  

 

"The steepest rise in HIV diagnoses between 2005 and 2014 was among young gay and bisexual men, with increases ranging from 56 percent among young white men to 87 percent among young black and Latino men

 

Both are populations that overall tend to have sex within each others race.  You combine that with lack of resources that were common as HIV was somewhat forgotten in the early to mid 2000's, and it was a combination for disaster.  With PrEP in the news, and HIV again in peoples minds, there is a new found drive to reduce infections.  Because of all of this I dont think we will see a spike, rather a slow decline in new infections.  I say slow because I bet I doubt we will see a decline in the roughly 40% of new infections that occur when a person is infected from there "monogamous" partner.  Those are the people that are likely to go off PrEP, and thus have no protection when their partner acquires the virus.

Edited December 8, 2015 by wood