Month: July 2005

“I was on the tube at Warren Street and I saw a flash in the next carriage and all of a sudden the lights dimmed and the emergency lights came on people were screaming. This cant be happening to us, not again.” – Jason Sunderland from Stratford, London. More first-hand accounts of the London explosions here.

Remember all the stories in the New York Times and the New Yorker claiming a huge new wave of HIV infections among gay men in the last few years? In Michael Specter’s recent New Yorker piece, we were simply told, “What’s new is the rise in [HIV] infections in the gay communities in such cities as San Francisco and New York.” Huh? Last time I checked, New York City had reported declining HIV rates for three years in a row. (To give a simple example, according to the New York City Health Department, 6,478 New Yorkers were diagnosed with HIV in 2001; in 2003, that number was 4,205.) Similarly, Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen, in a February column, wrote of “the apparent upsurge in HIV infections among gay males.” The New York Times reported as fact that “a growing number of gay men [have] become infected despite warnings about unsafe sex.” Now, in another city, we’re seeing a big readjustment in infection figures – downward. Money quote from San Francisco:

Since 2001, the city’s highly regarded epidemiology team has held to an estimate that more than 1,000 city residents are newly infected with the AIDS virus each year. But last month, a federal study of HIV among gay men in five U.S. cities found that new infections in San Francisco were occurring at about half the rate recorded four years ago. “This one (CDC) study has been quite an eye opener for us,” said Dr. Willi McFarland, epidemiologist for the San Francisco Department of Public Health’s Office of AIDS … Data from the city’s sexually transmitted disease clinics, where infection rates are expected to be high and were 5.4 percent in 2000, have fallen to 3.2 percent. At a clinic that provides anonymous testing services, rates have fallen from 3.9 percent to 2.8 percent.

Some of us have had our eyes open for a while now. How many stories will the New York Times devote to this news? My prediction: nada. Will the New Yorker, famous for its rigorous fact-checking, account for what appear to be obvious mistakes, which were the basis for the argument of the entire piece? Will Richard Cohen?

ONE MORE DETAIL: How are the AIDS and HIV “experts” explaining the drop? Here’s an interesting angle:

“HIV incidence among men who have sex with men in San Francisco appears to be decreasing,” said city health director Dr. Mitch Katz. The reasons for the apparent decline in new HIV infections may take years to understand, but Katz said the most likely explanation is that effective AIDS drugs have lowered the level of virus in those men who are HIV-positive and still having unprotected sex. Another possibility is that gay men are increasingly reserving the most risky behaviors, such as anal intercourse without a condom, for partners who are of the same sero-status — a practice known as “sero-sorting.” For example, HIV-positive men who sero-sort would have unprotected sex only with HIV positive partners.

This is what has also been called “bare-backing.” As long as it is between men with the same sero-status, and everything is disclosed and negotiated beforehand, it can help restrain the epidemic, rather than perpetuate it. The ironies continue.

Jon Stewart’s show got it right, according to an emailer:

Stewart: So after yesterday’s announcement of Bush’s pick for the Supreme Court, how is the left wing reacting?
Correspondent: Well, Jon, they’re outraged over Bush’s pick, and they have been for weeks.”

And they’re just getting started.

Here’s a blog tracking the developing news in London.

The mayor who was brave and resolute on 7/7 is back to his old habits of making excuses for Islamist extremism.

The worst-album-covers-ever website has new material.

A brief demonstration.

The news from London is confusing right now and I’m trying to piece it together. This seems odd:

Reports suggested that a number of blasts had been caused by dummy blasts caused by detonator caps exploding, unconnected to explosives. Witnesses at the various scenes said the blasts had come from rucksacks; police appealed for images from mobile phones from witnesses. The Met said after initial examinations at Warren Street and Oval, “early indications show no trace of chemical agents”.

Copy-cat scare tactics? Failed explosions? 7/7 repeated as farce? No casualties as yet. Londoners seem to be responding appropriately:

Witnesses at the Oval described a “small explosion” from a bag. One witness said man had joined the train carrying a bag and that passengers had scuffled with him but failed to stop him. “He had a black holdall when he boarded the train,” he told Sky News. “He put it down and suddenly ran off the train. People tried to stop him but he got away. There was then a noise which sounded like the popping of Champagne corks.”

Stay tuned.

Women’s rights are limited and then there’s this about Israel.

Good for the Roberts family for adopting children. Good for the church and the state for blessing their civil and religious marriage, despite its non-procreative character. If more people adopted, we might have fewer abortions. Just don’t go further and use others’ inability to procreate their own biological children as a reason for denying them equal treatment under the law – either in adoption or marriage.