Hmmm, good question. Just happened to spot several HIV/AIDS viruses cruising down Main Street. They passed right by a gay bar and went into a Burger King (watch your cheeseburgers today).
The slogan: "HIV is a gay disease" is certainly not scientifically correct for the simple reason that HIV is a virus, not a disease. HIV, however, is the accepted cause of AIDS.
When the AIDS epidemic began officially in June 1981, it was widely considered exclusively a "gay disease." Now everyone should know that AIDS is a worldwide epidemic; and most AIDS cases are heterosexual, not homosexual.
The truth is that 16,000 people worldwide are infected with HIV every single day (World Health Organization). They are not all gay. In the United States, HIV infection rates have held steady at 40,000 per year, but recent preliminary data suggests those rates are on the rise. They are not all gay. African-American and Hispanic women together represent less than one-fourth of all U.S. women, but account for more than three-fourths (76%) of AIDS cases among women in this country (CDC Update, 6/98). Women now account for 43% of all HIV infected people over the age of 15 (New York Times, 11/98). In just over a decade, the proportion of all AIDS cases reported among adult and adolescent women tripled, from 7% in 1985 to 22% in 1997 (CDC Update, 6/98).
So, even if the gay population wants to brag that HIV/AIDS is their very own disease ... the facts state otherwise. Yet another Urban Legend bites the dust
