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GLOBE and MAIL EDITORIAL "SEX UNDER WRAPS"
July 19, 2003
Editorial Note:
Over the past several years, REAL Women
has expressed its concern about the rise in the number of
cases of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis
and gonorrhea. This increase is particularly pronounced in
the homosexual community, which persists in behaviour which
creates them. Not only do such diseases cause great pain,
suffering, agony and death, each new infection adds $150,000
to our medical health bill.
There is no such thing as safe sex: condoms
only make it somewhat safer, and the current lifestyle of
many homosexuals does not even bother with this limited protection..
In order to stop the increase of these
terrible diseases, there is no question that there has to
be a significant lifestyle change in the homosexual community.
The situation has become so pronounced
that even the Globe and Mail, which has blindly supported
all things homosexual, has now been forced to issue a warning
to the homosexual community. Below is a Globe and Mail editorial,
published on July 19, 2003, in which this grave problem has
finally been publicly acknowledged.
Editorial
Globe and Mail, July 19, 2003
AIDS doctors in Vancouver who work with the large gay community
have noticed a troubling trend. Their patients, many of whom
put an unreasonable faith in the ability of drug cocktails
to protect them, are talking about a resurgence of group sex
parties. Orgies are making a comeback, it seems, and so too,
at least among the young, is unprotected sex.
At the same time, across Canada, the incidence
of gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease easily suppressed
by the use of condoms, is increasing rapidly. Rates have jumped
more than 40 per cent in the past five years, after 20 years
of steady decline.
The figures indicate that Canadians, both
gay and heterosexual, are engaging in high-risk sex to an
extent they haven't for more than a decade. The common denominator
is age. The highest rates of gonorrhea infection are among
women 15 to 19 and men 20 to 24. They are old enough to know
better, but they don't.
A generation ago Canadians became increasingly
careful to protect themselves during sex. Now that caution
seems to have been cast aside recklessly.
Part of the explanation is in the remarkable
success doctors have had over the past decade in treating
HIV with a mixture of drugs called highly active antiretroviral
therapy, which enables people to live longer and better lives
with HIV / AIDS. Many people seem to believe AIDS has been
defeated, as if the drugs were a cure rather than merely a
way of blunting the disease's impact.
It used to be impossible to walk the streets
of Canadian cities without noticing the gaunt faces of people
with AIDS. Friends, schoolmates and colleagues were dying
from AIDS-related illnesses, and it was obvious to all that
society was dealing with a terrible disease. The harsh reality
made people aware, and afraid, of the dangers of unprotected
sex.
A new generation has come of age sexually
without witnessing that devastation. The result is that the
fear of AIDS is gone, and young gays and heterosexuals are
getting back into the same unsafe practices that preceded
the first HIV epidemic.
Since the symptoms of AIDS take longer to
emerge than those of gonorrhea, and the unsafe practices that
spread one sexually transmitted disease will spread another,
there are fears the increased rates of gonorrhea foreshadow
a resurgence of HIV infection. The number of aboriginal Canadians
infected with HIV, for example, has nearly doubled in three
years.
An estimated 54,000 Canadians are already
infected with the virus, and more than 4,000 new infections
are recorded each year. Beyond the human toll, experts at
the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV / AIDS, Vancouver's St.
Paul's Hospital and The University of British Columbia say
the HIV epidemic has cost Canada's health-care system more
than $8 billion since the virus first reached Canada. Each
new infection adds $150,000 in direct costs.
The federal and provincial governments, together
with regional health units and schools, should launch educational
campaigns to revive a message that hasn't been getting through
to a younger generation. Safe sex makes sense. Unsafe sex
can kill you.
If the unprotected partying continues, a new
generation will learn the hard way what a terrible disease
AIDS can be.
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