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From: Hoffman.El_Segundo@xerox.com
Newsgroups: sci.med.aids
Subject: Re: (2624) Not a high risk group?
Message-ID: <40185@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 16 Oct 90 04:00:16 GMT
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Approved: ddodell@stjhmc.fidonet.org (David Dodell)
Note:	Copyright 1990 by Daniel R. Greening.  Permission granted for
Note:	non-commercial reproduction.
Archive-number: 2629

In (2624), Harvey Newstrom tries to relate varying definitions of gay, varying
estimates of the percentage of gay men in the population, and percentages of
gay men among people with AIDS.

"Gay men", however defined do NOT constitute a risk group.  HIV is not
magically attracted to me because I am gay.  In fact, given my behavior, I'm
probably at lower risk than most non-gays.

The only "risk group" relating to gay men that makes sense would be one based
on behavior, something like: "gay men who engage in unsafe sex".  THAT'S a high
risk group!  It's also a group even less quantifiable than "gay men" (again,
however you wish to define "gay").  And, of course, it is a group which has
diminished drastically in both absolute and relative size in the past decade,
thankfully.

  -- Rodney Hoffman