In the largest analysis of U.S. gay and bisexual men at high risk for HIV, experts with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) evaluated more than 8,000 such men in 21 cities and found that 44 percent of those who had the virus were unaware of it. Even though less than half of one percent of Americans have the AIDS virus, men who have sex with men contract HIV at much higher rates, and according to the CDC, more than half don’t get tested.
“Perhaps even more chilling are the statistical details,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. Study researchers found that while 28 percent of black men who have sex with men were infected with HIV, an overwhelming 60 percent didn’t know they had it, compared to 46 percent of Hispanic men and 26 percent of whites. “This is an incredibly large number of men who don’t know they have HIV.”
“This is a two-part disaster,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. “First, these infected men are forfeiting treatment because they don’t know they’re HIV-positive; and second, they continue to unknowingly transmit the virus.“
Dr. Ross’s biggest gripe is despite the fact that the public has been inundated with warnings about HIV, young gay and bisexual men continue to practice unsafe sex and not know their HIV status. “It’s just unbelievable to me,” he laments.
But ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom says he can understand it, to a certain extent. “The therapies to treat HIV are so much easier to tolerate these days — many patient’s disease can be controlled with one pill a day — that it might be a valid trade-off for some folks to put their lives at risk for sexual satisfaction. Paradoxically, this is because modern therapies are more reliable and effective than in the past.”