You see, if gay guys stop having sex and using poppers, all the AIDS will go away. Because that’s the problem with sub-Saharan Africa.

It happened just before the black-out, but no less than Rick Warren sharply rebuked Bryan Fischer for his HIV/AIDS denialism. Apparently the American Family Association has chosen to isolate itself further, even within the conservative Evangelical world. They’re earning their hate group label, yes indeed.

[h/t Joe]

There is literally no anti-science conspiracy theory far-fetched enough for a dim bulb like Bryan Fischer to latch onto. So we are not surprised that the most hateful spokesperson for one of the country’s most ridiculous hate groups, the American Family Association, is now an AIDS denialist:

I recently came across several articles commemorating the 20th anniversary of Magic Johnson’s HIV diagnosis. I still remember the screaming headlines in 1991, the abrupt termination of his NBA career at the height of his powers, and his subsequent and short-lived come back.

One would have expected pictures of Magic, taken 20 years after this life-sentence diagnosis, to be a withered, shriveled version of his former self, his life force eaten away by this killer virus.

“One would have expected,” said the renowned scientist and medical researcher Bryan Fischer.

So why is Magic the picture of health 20 years after this supposedly terminal diagnosis? Easy: the HIV virus does NOT cause AIDS. Since, as one of the world’s leading virologists, Peter Duesberg of U.C. Berkeley, says, HIV is a “harmless passenger virus,” Magic is likely to carry HIV with him to the end of a long and healthy life.

Duesberg wrote a bombshell book in 1996, Inventing the AIDS Virus, which exposes the myth of the so-called AIDS virus.

Peter Duesberg’s theories have been widely disproven, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in Africa, in part because certain leaders over there took him seriously for a while. He’s a quack, pure and simple. Right up Bryan Fischer’s alley…

In fact, in this respect, the bogus HIV/AIDS link is just like the hysterical anthropogenic global warming scam.

And only true idiots or those who stand to profit from huge corporations for propagating the idea that anthropogenic global warming is a myth would lend credence to that statement. As I highly doubt that Bryan Fischer is making that much money from the AFA, I’m going to continue believing he’s simply hysterical, incredibly easily led and simply not that smart.

Anyway, there’s no reason to go through Bryan’s piece line by line — that would be giving him more attention than he’s worth — but he sums up by blaming the entire AIDS crisis on gay men and poppers. This, of course, discounts the lives of the untold numbers of AIDS victims around the globe who are heterosexual, women and children. But wingnuts are pretty casual about discounting other people’s lives when it comes to pushing their propaganda, I’ve found.

Janice Shaw Crouse of the Concerned Women for America is very concerned! You see, the Obama administration is upping its contributions in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, and they’ve appointed Ellen DeGeneres as a “special envoy” to raise awareness, etc. This is a problem because:

“She is openly lesbian and obviously is an activist on the issue of homosexual rights and has taken a very active role in pushing the homosexual agenda. So for her to be the person who’s out front and the face of the Obama administration in the whole fight against AIDS I think is inappropriate,” Crouse decides.

She is also concerned about how the appointee will be received in sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS has been rampant. “There are plenty of Christian nations in that region and some Muslim nations in that region, so she is not going to receive a very warm welcome there or be an appropriate person to be the face of the fight against AIDS,” the CWA spokesperson warns.

Janice Shaw Crouse is well aware that certain nations like Uganda would rather kill gays than cure AIDS, and she wants people to know that she stands on the side of the oppressors, unlike that Ellen lesbian, I guess is the message here?

Whatever.

CNN is doing a series to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country, and I recommend that all read the remembrances of the acclaimed author Edmund White, who was there from the very first meeting of what became the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.  As a writer who is still relatively young, I find it fascinating, and crucial, to listen to and learn from these figures who lived through that time.  Many of our readers, I know, did live through it.  So whether this is a look back or a fresh education, it merits our attention.  Here’s a bit of it, and then I’ll just send you over to CNN’s website:

In 1985, Edmund White had five or six published books behind him, a Swiss lover with him and the outcome of an HIV test ahead of him. When the results came in, White told his partner:

“I’m a good enough novelist to know how this is going to work out. I’m going to be positive, you’re going to be negative, you’re going to be very nice about it, but you’re going to break up with me within a year.”

By many accounts, White is a good novelist — a great one, actually, having written numerous acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction.

Unfortunately, his storytelling sensibility foretold how the HIV tests would turn out and how he would lose his lover because of the dire prognosis: only two or three years left to live.

Okay, go read the rest. Seriously.  Later!

This is from last week, so if it’s old news to you, I Am Sorry, but I just ran across it, and as is usual with the mouthbreathing imbecile Bryan Fischer, I’m laughing too hard not to mock it thoroughly:

“That one puff on that cigarette could be the one that causes your heart attack,” said Surgeon General Regina Benjamin.

As long as we’re on the subject of health, what the surgeon general did not say but should have is that the same is true of homosexual behavior: the first act of gay sex can be the one that kills you.

Of course, the same can be said of the first act of straight sex, even if you’re married by Bryan Fischer’s Christian standards. If he’s HIV-infected, she can get it.

While drugs have been found to mitigate the damage done by HIV, there is no cure. Once someone contracts it, he has it for life, a life often tragically shortened by between eight and 20 years, according to the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Smoking will cut six to seven years from the lifespan of the smoker, meaning a cigarette habit is less dangerous to human health and longevity than gay sex.

Yes, the Idaho rube Bryan Fischer actually thinks all gay men have/will get HIV, when in reality it’s only a small number. Rates are much higher in sub-Saharan Africa, where it’s spread mostly through Godly Heterosexual Contact. As always with Bryan the question is: is he stupid or evil? Stupid or evil? Looking at his picture, I’m inclined to go with the former. Regardless, he’s a liar, so there’s that.

According to the Associated Press, “[T]here is no safe level of exposure to cigarette smoke.” Same goes for participation in gay sex – there is simply “no safe level of exposure.”

Actually, as long as neither partner is infected, Hot Hard Gay Sex is extremely safe, and moreover, FUN!

Here’s an idea: since gay sex is more dangerous to human health than cigarette smoking [sic], let’s make sure our public policies on both are the same.

All right, you have to be 18, but if somebody else buys the gay sex for you, you’re free to do it younger. BUT, and this is important: No gay sex in restaurants unless the establishment owner has a permit. Otherwise, you have to have all your gay sex outside, and at least 20-30 feet from all building entrances. Corporations are free to sex up designated homo sexytime areas.

Oh, and no gay sex in airports. Sorry, Larry Craig!

Okay, I’m done. Anyway, so that was Bryan Fischer, in his trademark remedial way, calling for the criminalization of homosexuality. This is why the American Family Association is a SPLC-certified hate group.

This is sort of fascinating:

Doctors who carried out a stem cell transplant on an HIV-infected man with leukaemia in 2007 say they now believe the man to have been cured of HIV infection as a result of the treatment, which introduced stem cells which happened to be resistant to HIV infection.

The man received bone marrow from a donor who had natural resistance to HIV infection; this was due to a genetic profile which led to the CCR5 co-receptor being absent from his cells. The most common variety of HIV uses CCR5 as its ‘docking station’, attaching to it in order to enter and infect CD4 cells, and people with this mutation are almost completely protected against infection.

[...]

The ‘Berlin patient’ is an HIV-positive man who developed acute myeloid leukaemia, received successful treatment and subsequently experienced a relapse in 2007 that required a transplant of stem cells.

Doctors chose stem cells from an individual who had an unusual genetic profile: a mutation inherited from both parents that resulted in CD4 cells that lacked the CCR5 receptor. This mutation, called CCR5 delta 32 homozygosity, is present in less than 1% of Caucasians in northern and western Europe, and is associated with a reduced risk of becoming infected with HIV.

This is because all new infecting viruses need to use the CCR5 receptor on CD4 cells when infecting an immune system cell of the CD4 type.

It’s not a magic bullet, it seems, and if you read the entire piece, you’ll see that it was a grueling treatment created for a specific set of circumstances, but it could point scientists in the right direction in curing the damn disease once and for all.

[h/t Gawker]

I had a feeling this was coming, in one way or another:

Homosexual sex should be just as against the law as injection drug use is. They represent the two leading modes of transmission for HIV/AIDS, and our policy toward one should be the same as our policy toward the other.

The Centers for Disease Control – which, by the way, is not the research arm of the American Family Association – says that in the entire history of the AIDS epidemic, 91% of the males who have been diagnosed with the disease contracted it either through having sex with other males or through intravenous drug abuse. Both are lethal forms of behavior, and neither should be endorsed or normalized by any sane society.

Difference, of course being that unprotected gay sex with a trusted partner who is not infected with anything is anything but harmful, and indeed can be super. It’s not the act — it’s the disease.

Homosexual sex is clearly not a victimless crime; passive recipients of unprotected gay sex can die as result of what another male does to them in the sex act.

But only if the other partner is infected with something. If they’re not [and kids, you should really all be getting tested and when you screw, do it with people whose status you know], then no worries.

So what should the penalty be? That’s easy – whatever gay porn actors say it should be. Let’s let gay porn actors tell society what the penalty for unprotected gay sex ought to be. I’m happy to let them take the lead on this issue, and will be happy to support whatever sanctions they recommend.

See the wingnut switcheroo Fischer pulls for his seven fans? It’s no longer about disease transmission — it’s about having unprotected sex of any kind, because in wingnut world, all gays have AIDS, and straight people don’t, and it’s certainly not a problem in Africa…

Fischer then references the story of Derrick Burts, an adult film star who has worked in both straight and gay porn, who recently contracted HIV, and is now calling for condom use to be mandatory in the gay porn world. [This is a good idea.] But, it’s Bryan Fischer, so you know that he doesn’t actually give a shit about the fag who got HIV, but rather wants to use him to make a bigoted point:

Now Mr. Burts is on a crusade to make condom use mandatory in the filming of all gay sex scenes.

Of adult film work, Mr. Burts says, “It’s very dangerous. It should be required that you wear a condom on the set.”

Now think about this for a moment. If Mr. Burts wants condom use to be mandatory, that means he wants to impose some kind of penalty for unprotected homosexual sex.

Um, no, it doesn’t, you unrepentant imbecile. It means he wants condom use to be mandatory in the adult film business. Indeed, the quotes from Burts are fairly clear.

Here’s my suggestion. Let’s follow Mr. Burts’ lead, and use his suggested penalty as the penalty society imposes on all unprotected homosexual sex.

Because a couple who’s been together 25 years doing it without a condom is just as bad as carelessness on a porn set. Yeah. Again, it’s always useful to remember that wingnuts like Bryan are so scientifically retarded [but with extra helpings of irrational bigotry] that they sort of think that HIV just springs up in gay men’s bodies out of nowhere.

I say we let the victims of gay sex, like Mr. Burts, tell us what kind of penalty should be imposed on their victimizers.

Mr. Burts is not a “victim of gay sex.” He got hurt by the poor standards and practices employed by the film company where he worked.

Homosexual activists will certainly go ballistic over this suggestion…

Nah, just making fun of the dum-dum, as usual.

After all, if unprotected gay sex is the problem, then the problem is gay sex. Ultimately we need to get to appropriate sanctions for the act itself. After all, condoms break or don’t get used at all in the heat of the moment. But beginning with sanctions for unprotected gay sex is a place to start.

Uh, no, the problem is disease. This is why, though, the AFA has been labeled as a hate group. For people like Bryan Fischer, who are so untethered from reality, all gay sex is equivalent to the free-for-all sexual nature of a porn set. I understand why he thinks that way, because for him to think differently would destroy his worldview. Wingnuts are essentially required to sign on to false ideas about any number of things, in order for their ideologies to remain at least tenuously coherent.

So oddly, I will be the one taking the side of the homosexual porn star in this matter, willing to support him in his effort to sanction unprotected gay sex, while irrational and unhinged homosexual activists will try to demonize both him and me. Let’s stand together, Mr. Burts

.Derrick Burts never said anything about sanctioning all unprotected gay sex. But don’t expect the average 70 I.Q. AFA reader to notice that…

Know your status and be safe, kids.

Cartoon image

I read the New York Times with my morning coffee and came across an interesting editorial, “Advances on the AIDS Front”.

The first major advance was a pill that would potentially stop HIV- men from contracting the disease. The second step forward was a vaginal gel which cut a woman’s risk for infection. The third leap towards the future was not a scientific breakthrough, but a decision not to stifle science:

Pope Benedict XVI expressed the view that condoms could be used to prevent disease transmission. That could make it easier for ecclesiastical workers and AIDS prevention programs to promote their use.

The Pope should be applauded for leaving the fifteenth century and all positive steps are welcome. But isn’t it ironic that the Vatican finally stopped its blind attacks on condoms at the very moment there was a pill to potentially limit the spread of  the disease?

My point is that the juxtaposition of these new discoveries and Rome finally seeing the light highlights how appallingly late they are to the game. I first heard of AIDS when I was eleven or twelve. I am now 40-years old and millions of people are now dead — and the Pope has finally come around to agree that male prostitutes should wear condoms.

I bristle when I think of the countless lives that could have been spared had the Vatican spoken while I was in Middle School instead of middle age. If Rome had really been pro-life than thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of human beings — men, women, children and even babies — would have survived.

Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had the power to raise awareness about condoms. Their stubborn prudishness led to piles of dead bodies — Holocaust size in scale — that could have been prevented.

When I think about what could have been accomplished with an enlightened Vatican it breaks my heart. But for some pathological reason, pontiffs always seem compelled to reject science and finally come around after a body count. Sadly, the Vatican’s two responses to HIV/AIDS prevention efforts have been sleep walking or walking off a cliff.

History will judge these actions quite harshly and severely tarnish the church’s image.

The Pope’s tardy comments are better late than never. But, unless the Pope can get Jesus to raise the dead, we will never get back the beautiful, innocent lives that were lost due to the Vatican’s stand on condoms. My one message to the Vatican:

There is no rule in the Bible that claims you must fight to undermine every scientific advance since the Enlightenment. History shows that you will eventually embrace the truth anyway, so why not sooner than later? In the future, why not try the wise — instead of the ignorant, reactionary — course of action — particualrly when lives are at stake?

I try not to get too excited about supposed HIV/AIDS breakthroughs. I first heard about the disease when I was twelve and it is still around ruining lives and affecting millions of people. However, an article in today’s New York Times, “Daily Pill Greatly Lowers AIDS Risk, Study Finds”, looks promising. According to Donald G. McNeil’s article:

In a development that could change the battle against AIDS, researchers have found that taking a daily antiretroviral pill greatly lowers the chances of getting infected with the fatal virus.

In the study, published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that the hundreds of gay men randomly assigned to take the drugs were 44 percent less likely to get infected than the equal number assigned to take a placebo.

But when only the men whose blood tests showed they had taken their pill faithfully every day were considered, the pill was more than 90 percent effective, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, head of the division of the National Institutes of Health, which paid for the study along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“That’s huge,” Dr. Fauci said. “That says it all for me.”

If the results stick, this could be a milestone in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Let us hope this is a genuine advance and not another test tube tease.

On a related note, Sean Strub has written an interesting article on the POZ magazine blog about how some people are taking a dose of HIV meds right after sex if they think they may have been exposed to the virus. Like all of Sean’s work, it is well-researched, thought provoking and well worth the read.  Here is a snipet:

I enjoy speaking on college campuses.

No matter the main topic of my talk, I always mention post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), the highly effective strategy for avoiding HIV transmission after one has been potentially exposed to HIV through sexual contact or a shared needle.  The topic is invariably new to the students; only rarely are any of them familiar with PEP.

PEP has long been standard practice for healthcare workers after they get accidentally stuck with a needle.  If an employee at an AIDS service organization, hospital or clinic gets a needle stick, they are put on a 28 day course of anti-retrovirals within minutes.

A quick response is important; the sooner to the point of exposure PEP is commenced, the more likely it is to prevent infection.  After two or three days, it is vastly less effective.

But in a condom breaks or someone does something they quickly regret, it is difficult to access PEP even if one knows about its efficacy.  Why are there not PEP hotlines or delivery services to provide information and treatment when it is needed, when it can still prevent an infection?

What Sean is saying makes a lot of sense.

POZ Magazine has a cover story dealing with how “ex-gay” organizations exploit fears of HIV and AIDS to recruit new members.

Interestingly, in the story, Exodus’ President Alan Chambers says that his group is leaving the culture wars and will remain neutral on political issues. (We’ve heard this line before, even as Exodus took part in mobilizing voters to support Prop 8 in California. Let’s see if Exodus can keep its nose out of such battles and Washington)

Check out the in-depth article by Trenton Straube:

Leaders of the ex-gay movement have long used the threat of HIV/AIDS to recruit people struggling with their sexuality. Likewise, parents of children who might be gay have been scared into sending their kids to ex-gay camps or reparative therapy. But the tragic irony is that the pursuit of “better-health-through-nongayness” leads to far more physical and psychological harm—not to mention elevated risks for HIV.