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The Forum > Article Comments > Combatting STIs and Hep C amongst the male gay community > Comments

Combatting STIs and Hep C amongst the male gay community : Comments

By Robert E Smith, published 23/9/2013

We desperately need a ground-breaking educational overhaul in our public system to school gay and bisexual men.

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Robert, I suspect that the lack of a response on OLO to your article by 11.15 am is indicative of the general complacency of the community about this important subject.
Posted by VK3AUU, Monday, 23 September 2013 11:14:19 AM
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One would have thought this problem was more urgent than putting chaps in schools.
Particularly those whose stone age belief also includes, there is an element of choice in gender bias!
A stone age bias that also includes some so-called health professionals, who perpetuate and or prolong the problem, by refusing to treat HIV, on the grounds that it is a self induced problem, much like say sunburn, which they will by the way, treat!
Incidentally, it is not just the gay or needle sharing community at risk, but virtually every health professional, but particularly, paramedics, who are often exposed to blood spatter, and other body fluids, or drug affected drug crazed patients, who react to having their heroin overdoses managed, with screaming, kicking and clawing spiting fits.
And rubber gloves hardly ever provide adequate protection against needle stick infection.
Easy enough if your hands are trembling with the usual end of shift exhaustion of the nursing fraternity, or that of Ambos, who might confront personal danger on a virtual daily basis; and no, you never ever do get used to it!
Just prior to 1986 there were 142 registered hemophiliacs in Australia.
Since then each and everyone has died of medically acquired aids. Moreover, anyone needing a blood transfusion prior to 1987 was playing virtual Russian roulette with their lives, and at odds as high as 9 to 1, at the height of the epidemic.
Moreover, HIV regularly mutates, with some of the mutations being virtually untreatable and often lethal within months.
So, no complacency please!
Indubitably, we should be pouring much more money into this area, and indeed, put some sort of criminal sanction on so called doctors/health professionals, who knowingly withhold proper or effective treatment on quite spurious religious conviction or imbecilic privacy grounds!?
Hard to believe I know, but ask any Ambo and they will likely tell you, when properly pressed, they know or have heard of one or two.
So, its not just the immature, irresponsible hedonistic gay community that needs educating!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Monday, 23 September 2013 11:37:15 AM
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The concern is that the diseases are jumping across to the heterosexual population and to children. Bisexuals transmit the diseases to women.

Such are the risks that it should be a legal requirement for any man who has ever had sex with another man to declare that to a woman before sex in order that she can make an informed decision. Consent goes beyond the simple agreement to have sex, it also implies on both sides that the unwitting partner is not placed at risk of a life threatening disease.

The gay 'rights' lobby will challenge to neuter any sex education or public health advertising other than that which promotes homosexual sex.
Posted by onthebeach, Monday, 23 September 2013 1:11:24 PM
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FFS - In Australia, regardless of sexual preference, practice or your gender, age, race, religion or culture you will have been living under a rock if you know nothing about sexually transmitted disease and recommended methods of avoiding infection.

Throw billions of $$$ into "Education" and guess what? It will hardly make a dent in the number of IDIOTS who will still take stupid risks with their health and more disturbing, have no regard for that of others.

I recall the "scary" Grim Reaper HIV/AIDS campaign of the late 80s was highly successful in educating the public and scaring many people into modifying their behaviour.
However this ad was deemed 'offensive' by a section of the gay male community because it supposedly 'demonised' gay men, despite the dangers being depicted across the entire demographic.

An early example of 'political correctness' being used to blanket truth. The truth, of course, that behaviour of a sizable number of homosexual males had brought HIV to Australia and spread it predominately among themselves. Hetero infection was uncommon and rarely linked to sexual activity. Therefore despite the campaign mostly benefitting the male gay demographic it was pulled after only a matter of weeks. It remains however, highly memorable to those who did see it.

So maybe resurrect the Grim Reaper with amended footage to include the incurable Heps B,C & more and increasingly difficult to treat STIs like Syphilis where antibiotic resistance is growing.
If education isn't working perhaps stark reality scare tactics may once again have some impact.

As for cost comparison, a great proportion of over 1.5 million kids can access a School Chaplain for comfort and advice in times of personal need. It's not a vehicle for 'conversion' but a Christian outreach responsible for reducing destructive behaviour and self-harm among our teens. Compare this with the number of stupid, irresponsible, morally deficient gay/bi men at whom Robert Smith suggests more than $25.4 million should be flung and decide which represents better value.
Posted by divine_msn, Monday, 23 September 2013 1:22:20 PM
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instead of finding ways to avoiding reaping what you sow, the issue of promiscurity being promoted and encouraged by secularist and the gay lobby should be addressed. Without that any money spent usually just feeds the propaganda industry. How is it that the godless continue to create havoc in society and then blame everyone else for not paying to clean up their mess.
Posted by runner, Monday, 23 September 2013 2:57:55 PM
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It's not a public health problem. In fact it would be harder to find a better example of a private health problem. Why should some people, who practise safe sex, have their income stolen before they even receive it so as to force them to pay for other people who choose to have unsafe sex?
Posted by Jardine K. Jardine, Monday, 23 September 2013 3:11:30 PM
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