From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Heterosexual AIDS
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 04:28:46 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.025724.22503@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy) writes:
>#>2) It is irrelavent. Argueing that because a random homosexual partner
>#>is more likely to be HIV+ than a random heterosexual partner mean that
>#>you can take fewer precautions is like argueing that a person who
>#>skydives only once a year doesn't need to be as careful as someone who
>#>skydives 300 times a year.
>#
>#This is a non sequitur, so I don't know what to make of it. 
>
>It is *not* a non sequitur. When dealing with a life threatening
>situation, you need to be as careful if you only do it once as you do
>if you do it multiple times. You had argued the other way.

It has nothing to do with multiple times.  One behavior is simply less risky
than the other behavior.  Or do you not trust people to deal with relative
levels of risk?

># A heterosexual
>#male is more likely to die in a car accident driving ten miles to a sexual
>#encounter with a non-IV using female than from contracting HIV from that
>#female.   
>
>That may be true today, but if heterosexuals continue to not take
>protection against spread of HIV it won't be true. And the amount of
>time for it not to be true is frighteningly small. 

That's the same scare line that was used seven years ago.  And, no
doubt, it will be used seven years from now.  And be just as valid both
times.

>#Women are abysmal transmitters of HIV, so most heterosexual
>#men will never be at risk, and women that sleep with heterosexual men won't be
>#at risk. 
>
>Are you willing to bet you life on these "abysmal" odds? If nothing is
>done, the number of HIV cases will rise. However, doing something is
>easy. 

Show me where I say nothing should be done.  I'm distinguishing between high
and astronomically low odds of risk.

>#Eighty
>#percent of monogamous couples where the male was infected and the female
>#wasn't didn't result in a female infection, despite the fact that each of
>#these couples averaged three hundred or so sexual encounters.
>
>I would not call a 20 percent chance of getting HIV "abysmal". 
>
>And using the factor of 17 that you posted earlier, that means there
>is over a 1 percent chance of getting HIV.

Assuming I have hundreds of encounters with someone HIV+, then, yes,
there's about a one percent chance.  Which translates to about a 0.03%
chance for any one encounter with someone HIV+.  Now, less than 1/500
non-IVDU women are HIV+.  This translates into a 0.0006% chance.  Now,
let's say I wear a condom that's 99% effective.  Now, I have a 0.000006%
chance of contracting HIV from a random sexual encounter with a non-IVDU
woman.  If I worried about every 17,000,000:1 chance I took, I'd never leave
the house.        

>Are you willing to bet your life on "poor transmitters"? I'm not.

Yes you are.  You're not living in a bubble, are you?  
-- 
ted frank                     | thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu 
standard disclaimers          | void where prohibited
the university of chicago law school, chicago, illinois 60637
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton