National health officials are warning of a potential new surge of AIDS cases among homosexual men.

“The signs are unmistakable. There’s the potential for a whole new wave of HIV infections, especially among the young,” said Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Whitman Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C.

From 1999 to 2001, studies reveal that the number of HIV infections grew by 8% after a relatively long period of decline since 1994. Of special concern was the rate of HIV infection among homosexual men, which jumped 14% over that same period.

However, experts warn that the problem may be even worse, since the figures are derived from counting AIDS cases in only 25 states, and those states only account for 25% of the U.S. total. Excluded from the latest figures are the two states with the biggest caseloads – New York and California. All 50 states are due to report their numbers in 2004.

Experts say one of the most significant causes of this trend toward higher infection rates is that homosexual men – especially in younger age brackets – are simply drifting away from following the “practice safe sex” mantra of earlier years.

Harold Jaffe, director of the National Center for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Tuberculosis Prevention (NCHSTP) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said, “Several factors seem to contribute to this high-risk behavior, including fading memories of the early epidemic, illicit drug use and treatment optimism.”

In the early 1980s, “gay” bathhouses helped fuel the AIDS crisis, as homosexual men cruised those locations looking for numerous casual-sex encounters. Today, according to one story by ABC News, the Internet may be fulfilling the same role as the bathhouses.

“The Internet is a new venue associated with high-risk sex. It is a quick and easy way to meet new partners,” said Sabina Hirschfield of the Medical and Health Research Association in New York City.

Hirschfield and other researchers surveyed nearly 3,000 homosexual men who use www.Gay.com, which describes itself as “the world’s largest gay & lesbian [Internet] destination.” According to ABCNews.com, 84% of respondents said they met sex partners online, while nearly 66% said they had recently had anal sex without using condoms. The survey also found that about 25% said they had had more than 100 sex partners over the course of their lives.

This growing willingness to participate in risky sex is particularly dangerous, because a sizable percentage of people infected with HIV are unaware that they have the virus. According to the CDC, although 900,000 people in the U.S. are infected with the AIDS virus, almost one-third of those individuals don’t even know they have HIV.

“We are still very concerned about the estimated 280,000 people in America who are infected with HIV and don’t know it,” NCHSTP deputy director Dr. Ron Valdiserri told the 10th Annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston in February.

More disturbing is what appears to be the growing phenomenon of “bug chasers” within the “gay” community – homosexual men trying to get infected with the AIDS virus. An article in Rolling Stone by writer Gregory Freeman found that “[s]ome want HIV because they think once they have it they can go on with a wild, uninhibited sex life without constant fears of the virus.”

Dr. Bob Cabaj, director of behavioral health services for San Francisco County, told Freeman that he estimated that 25% of all newly-infected homosexual men fall into the “bug chaser” category, and that AIDS groups and homosexual public health officials are covering up the phenomenon.
“Yeah, it’s an active cover-up, because they know about [bug chasing]. They’re in denial of this issue,” Cabaj told Rolling Stone. “This is a difficult issue that dredges up some images about gay men that they don’t want to have to deal with. They don’t want to shine a light on this topic because they don’t want people to even know that this behavior exists.”

When the Rolling Stone article broke, however, Cabaj was immediately blasted by homosexual activists for his comments. He has since denied using the 25% figure.

AIDS funding
With the potential for a second wave of AIDS infections being driven by carelessness and sexual promiscuity among homosexual men, some are calling for a reevaluation of the nation’s funding priorities for AIDS.

Critics argue that AIDS funding has become such a priority for the federal government because it is so closely connected with the politically potent homosexual movement, not because it is more lethal than other diseases.

While more than 15,000 people die each year in the U.S. from AIDS, the number of Americans dying from other diseases dwarfs that figure. For example, 700,000 people die each year from heart disease, while roughly 550,000 die from cancer.

Critics have long noted that when federal expenditures per disease deaths are compared, AIDS funding is seriously bloated. In 2002, according to the Family Research Council, tax monies distributed through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the National Cancer Institute amounted to roughly $7,700 for each death caused by cancer. The NIH also spent $6,949 per diabetes death and $2,714 per cardiovascular death. Meanwhile, the NIH spends an eye-popping $164,000 per AIDS death – despite the fact that the number of deaths from that disease is not even in the top 15 causes of death in the U.S.

Reuters, 2/11/03; USA Today, 2/12/03; ABCNews.com, 2/11/03; Rolling Stone, 2/6/03; Culture Facts, 5/3/02