2) The Chicago Sun-Times reported on Nov. 27, 2003, that there has been "a 17 percent increase in new HIV cases among gay men over the last three years....The CDC [Centers for Disease Control] said the infection rate among heterosexuals and intravenous drug users did not change significantly."²

3) U.S. News & World Report interestingly described AIDS as one of those "scourges that start in the upper reaches of society [i.e., the 'upper classes'] and come tumbling down the social ladder."³ As some of the following quotes show, AIDS has struck hard at young urban professionals. These quotes imply an unusual correlation between education and unsafe sex. (One would think educated professionals should be intelligent enough to avoid risky, life-threatening sex.)

4) "A CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] study released...this month [July 2002] found that many gay and bisexual men who are HIV-positive don't know it. Overall, 77 percent of the...HIV-positive men in the study were unaware they were infected."⁴ (One would think "intelligent" people engaging in unsafe sex would know they are at risk for AIDS and would be tested and would know whether they have it. And is smoking a sign of intelligence? The Sept. 13, 2004, edition of U.S. News & World Report [p. 55], noted that "Up to 50 percent of adult gay men are smokers...compared with 28 percent of men in the general population.")

5) "In New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, the number of cases of syphilis in homosexual men approximately doubled every year from 1998 through 2001, and it looks like they will double again this year [2002]....[T]he syphilis outbreaks not only tell us that our hopes of eliminating this disease with the next decade are gone, but also confirm predictions that we will see a second wave of HIV infection in gay men."⁵

6) The "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported...that the incidence of new HIV infections diagnosed among homosexual men climbed 14 percent between 1999 and 2001, significantly higher than the 8 percent growth among the entire U.S. population."⁶

7) The total number of Americans infected with HIV is estimated to be 900,000 to one million for 2002; and the number of infected has been rising in recent years by about 25,000 annually (40,000 new HIV infections every year, but, since the advent of potent anti-AIDS drugs, only 15,000 deaths due to AIDS annually----40,000 minus 15,000 equals 25,000).⁷

8) "[A]bout 40 percent [of new HIV infections in the U.S.] occur among men who have sex with men."⁸ Men who have sex with men represent only around 2-3% of the population.

9) "The average [health care] cost for an HIV-positive patient [in the U.S. in 2002] is $14,000 per year, while care for those with full-blown AIDS averages $34,000 a year....[But] the figures may, in fact, be conservative [because wholesale, not retail, prices for anti-AIDS drugs were used in the computations]."⁹

10) "The whole theater community has lost so many to AIDS."¹⁰

11) "The AIDS epidemic has taken a disproportionately large number of its victims from the arts world; certainly no one who works in opera has not lost friends and colleagues to it."¹¹

12) "Gail Kalver, general manager of the Hubbard Street Dance Company,...has observed the ranks of many ballet and dance troupes depleted by death through AIDS."¹²

13) "[T]he tremendous losses AIDS has brought upon the figure skating community...[is due to] the prevalence of homosexual men in the figure skating world."¹³

14) "In every branch of culture----dance, theater, literature, music, design, fashion, art, television, movies----the devastation from AIDS continues."¹⁴

15) "So many artists I've known are dead [from AIDS], and so many more are going to die. Choreographers, dancers, musicians, opera singers, designers."¹⁵

16) "Gabriel Rotello, gay columnist of New York Newsday, wrote recently that it's time to tell the truth: 'Up to 50 percent of gay men...are infected with HIV, while just a tiny fraction of 1 percent of middle-class straights are.'"¹⁶ (That quote was written at the end of 1994.)

17) "State prisons [in Illinois] spent $2.5 million on AIDS drugs during the first seven months of 1998."¹⁷

18) Illinois "spent $16 million this fiscal year [1996-97] on a program to provide drugs to poor HIV patients."¹⁸

19) In 1999, Medicaid spent $617 million funding anti-AIDS drug regimens for poor HIV-infected people.¹⁹

20) "Before anyone knew much about the [AIDS] scourge, the virus had contaminated the blood supply and infected thousands of people....In the early 1980s, 1 out of 50 bags of blood collected in San Francisco contained HIV."²⁰

21) "Between 1979 and 1984, with syphilis peaking and bathhouses serving thousands of men a week, HIV tore through the gay population in magnet cities like San Francisco and New York. Reconstructions of the [AIDS] epidemic estimate that close to half of gay men in these cities----and between 270,000 and 490,000 nationwide----became infected in just these few years."²¹

22) In the 1980s, "tainted blood infected 20,000 Americans with HIV [most if not all of whom have probably died of AIDS by now]....Fueled by new testing technology, the cost of a pint of blood has increased from $40 two decades ago to $150 to $200 today [2003]----almost four times the increase in the general inflation rate."²² Those "politically (in)correct" liberal Neanderthals, who think that whatever happens in the privacy of one's bedroom is nobody else's business, are plainly wrong and are plainly in need of some educating. Because so many people, homosexual and bisexual and heterosexual, are engaging in unsafe sex, we have to put donated blood through many more expensive screening tests than we did in more sexually conservative times. Unsafe sex is obviously not cost-free.

23) "The number of people in Chicago who have AIDS [in 2003] has more than doubled since 1994 and is nearing 10,000....A main reason more people have AIDS is because combination drug therapies are keeping them alive longer....The growing number of AIDS survivors is straining social services and the health care system."²³

24) From the Chicago Free Press, a homosexual newspaper: "In a thoughtful and important commentary published in New York's Gay City News (3/15/07), longtime AIDS activist Spencer Cox and psychologist Bruce Kellerhouse explore some reasons for rising rates of HIV infection among mid-life gay men. They write: 'New data released by the (New York City) Department of Health show that the highest rates of new HIV infections are among gay men 35-49 years old.'"²⁴

25) From the Nov. 28, 2007 Journal of the American Medical Association: "MSM [men who have sex with men] have accounted for a higher proportion of AIDS cases than any other group in countries such as the United States (44%), Canada (65%), and Australia (64%)....The estimated number of U.S. cases of HIV/AIDS among MSM...increased from 16,167 in 2001 to 18,296 in 2005, a 13% increase....[And there was a] 10-fold increase in primary and secondary syphilis cases reported among MSM in the United States from 2001 to 2005....Recent U.S. surveys of MSM document high rates of unsafe sex."²⁵

1. Associated Press, "U.S. HIV forecast: 24 years, $600,000," Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 2006, section 1, p. 8.

2. "HIV increase worries feds," Chicago Sun-Times, Nov. 27, 2003, p. 43.

3. Michael Barone and David Gergen, "Tomorrow," U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 17, 1990, p. 32.

4. Kevin McKeough, "With STDs, many still wind up sorry instead of safe," Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2002, sec. 8, p. 1.

5. Tom Farley, "Cruise Control (Bathhouses are reigniting the AIDS crisis)," Washington Monthly, Nov. 2002, pp. 37-41.

6. "CDC reports 1% increase in AIDS cases," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 12, 2003, sec. 1, p. 12.

7. Thomas Maugh II, "Untreated HIV soars, U.S. warns," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 26, 2002, sec. 1, p. 11.

8. Jeremy Manier and Achy Obejas, "AIDS roars back; blacks hardest hit," Chicago Tribune, June 1, 2001, sec. 1, p. 24.

9. Thomas Maugh II, "Report: AIDS has orphaned 13.4 million," Chicago Tribune, July 11, 2002, sec. 1, p. 4.

10. Neil Steinberg, "50,000 Join AIDS Walk," Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 18, 1995, p. 8.

11. Sarah Bryan Miller, "Operatic AIDS benefit hits most of the right notes," Chicago Tribune, Oct. 18, 1995, sec. 5, p. 2.

12. Richard Christiansen, "Artists face AIDS with craft and care," Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1992, sec. 1, p. 12.

13. Liesl Schillinger, "Cut-throats on ice," Chicago Sun-Times, March 10, 1996, "Showcase" sec., p. 14.

14. David Ansen, "A Lost Generation," Newsweek, Jan. 18, 1993, p. 16.

15. Mark Morris, "The Artist," U.S. News & World Report, June 17, 1991, p. 26.

16. John Leo, "Framing the wrong picture," U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 26, 1994/Jan. 2, 1995, p. 21.

17. Tim Novak, "Fewer inmates dying from AIDS," Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 31, 1998, p. 19.

18. Dave McKinney,"AIDS deaths down 21% but decline is uneven,"Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 16, 1997, p. 14.

19. Andrew Zajac and Bruce Japsen, "Medicaid pays more for AIDS drugs," Chicago Tribune, July 27, 2001, sec. 3, p. 1.

20. Rachel K. Sobel, "A bloody mess," U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 3, 2001, p. 37.

21. Tom Farley, "Cruise Control (Bathhouses are reigniting the AIDS crisis)," Washington Monthly, Nov. 2002, p. 37.

22. David Kohn, "Debate on blood supply heats up," Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1, 2003, sec. 1, p. 14.

23. Jim Ritter, "Number of Chicago AIDS cases doubles," Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 7, 2003, p. 9A.

24. Paul Varnell, "AIDS in Mid-Life," Chicago Free Press, March 28, 2007, p. 4.

25. Drs. Harold Jaffe, Ronald Valdiserri, and Kevin DeCock,"The Reemerging HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Men Who Have Sex With Men," Journal of the American Medical Association, Nov. 28, 2007, p. 2412.