Homos Looking to Deliberately Be Infected With HIV

"Thrasher - The Anonymous Remailer" wrote in message
...
HIV experts and gay advocates are criticizing the Feb. 6 issue of
Rolling Stone magazine that includes a controversial feature about how
some HIV-negative men seek to become infected with the virus through
unprotected sex with men they know are HIV-positive.

The article -- "Bug Chasers: The Men Who Secretly Long to Be HIV" --
claims these men believe that the disease is "beautiful and sexy" and
refer to the HIV-positive men who may infect them as "gift givers."

In the feature Bob Cabaj, M.D., director of behavioral health services
for San Francisco County and former president of the Gay and Lesbian
Medical Association, is quoted as claiming that 25 percent of gay men
now infected with the HIV virus actually wanted to become infected.

Cabaj, however, claims he did not say this. In a Newsweek story posted
on the Internet, Cabaj said the feature is false and it is impossible
to know how many gay men deliberately go out to get infected with the
HIV virus, but the figure is likely to be very small.

Marshall Forstein, the medical director of mental health and addiction
services at Fenway Community Health in Boston, also said the feature
was a "fabrication." He admitted there are so-called '"bug chaser"
cases, but he said they are very uncommon

The story has been criticized in other news outlets and by HIV
prevention advocates and gay groups. Cathy Renna of GLAAD called the
Rolling Stone piece "groundless," and Shana Krochmal of the Stop AIDS
Project called the statistics "inaccurate," adding that bug-chasing is
a "relatively uncommon behavior."

On Friday, GLAAD urged readers who are concerned about the article's
claims to write letters to the editor of Rolling Stone, Ed Needham.

Rolling Stone, however, has stood by the validity of the feature and
the freelance journalist who wrote it, Gregory Freeman.