Gerald Hoff, a Kansas City Health Department epidemiologist, said a recent survey
of more than 1,000 gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in Missouri found most are
healthy but disproportionately engage in unhealthy habits like smoking and having
unprotected sex.
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Friday, April 09, 2004
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A survey of more than 1,000 gay men, lesbians and
bisexuals found a population that is generally healthy practicing unhealthy habits
such as smoking, unprotected sex and missed medical tests. The survey was conducted
by the Kansas City Health Department and the Lesbian & Gay Community Center
of Greater Kansas City. It found that 38.4 percent of gay men and lesbians were
smokers, significantly higher than the national rate of 23.1 percent. About 34
percent of gays and 24 percent of lesbians drank to get drunk at least once a
month. Stress and depression were common. Many lesbians did not get regular mammograms,
although research suggests they may be at increased risk of breast cancer. And
some sexually active men were not using condoms consistently, raising their risk
of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. “We didn’t try to
be statistically representative,” said Gerald Hoff, a health department
epidemiologist who helped analyze the data and write the report. “But the
survey accomplished its main objective: to create some baseline data.”
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Student leaders at Western Oregon University last
week rejected a proposed ban on allowing the Red Cross to hold blood drives
on campus. Sponsors of the proposal had charged that the Red Cross discriminates
against gays because it will not accept blood from men who acknowledge having
had sex with another man even once within the past 25 years. They said the
ban violates the school’s zero-tolerance policy against discrimination
and that the Red Cross should be kept off the campus. On March 30, six student
senators voted against the proposed ban and two student senators abstained
from voting. Most said matters of public health override issues of discrimination. “I
think this is a case where student senators were responsible in representing
the sentiments of the vast majority of students here,” University President
Philip Conn said.
LOS ANGELES — Public health officials, in response to a rise in HIV infections
among gay men, again face the question of how to regulate gay bathhouses and
sex clubs, the Los Angeles Times reported. County health leaders may utilize
more strict enforcement of existing laws, which require bathhouse customers
to use condoms, the Times reported. Health officials also are debating whether
or not to impose safe-sex regulations on other types of gay sex clubs, according
to the Times. The county may require all such gay clubs to offer information
on safe sex, on-site testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases,
and to offer condoms, the newspaper reported. The renewed debate was sparked
by a Los Angeles County study showing newly diagnosed HIV infections are seven
times higher among bathhouse patrons than among others tested for the disease,
the Times reported. The health department will develop a proposal to combat
the problem by May 15 for presentation to the Board of Supervisors, the Times
reported.
WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — Researchers for the University of Massachusetts
Medical School said they plan to begin human testing of an AIDS vaccine which
aggressively attacks the virus that causes the disease. The human immunodeficiency
virus, or HIV, which causes AIDS, constantly changes its outer coating to dodge
the immune system. The U.Mass. vaccine attempts to target five strains of HIV
simultaneously, a process that worked on animals according to the researchers. “We
underestimate the complexity of HIV,” said Dr. Shan Lu, a U.Mass. scientist
chiefly responsible for the vaccine’s development. The U.Mass. trial
is one of at least 18 new approaches to AIDS vaccines underwritten by the National
Institutes of Health, and one of four human trials with $70 million in NIH
funding. Vaccine research is still waiting for the breakthrough that AZT had,
when that first effective AIDS medicine boosted treatment in the mid-1980s,
said Margaret Johnston, the director of the vaccine and prevention research
program in the NIH’s AIDS division.
MIAMI (AP) — The number of people with HIV or AIDS has risen faster in
the South than any other region of the country, and the problem will worsen
without changes, the authors of a new study said this week. The South accounted
for only 38 percent of the U.S. population, but 40 percent of the country’s
AIDS cases in 2002, according to a report presented at the National HIV/AIDS
Update Conference. The region also accounted for 46 percent of new AIDS cases
between 2000 and 2002. The report, which examined 17 Southern states and the
District of Columbia, was prepared by Michelle Scavnicky, community relations
director for the AIDS Institute, and Kim Williams, a researcher at the Centers
for Disease Control & Prevention. Scavnicky said a growing number of people
living in rural areas are being diagnosed with HIV and there are more new infections
among blacks and Hispanics.
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