With new drugs now extending lives and making the disease appear treatable, too many HIV-positive people are having promiscuous sex, and too many uninfected gays think they re not at risk. I think people just got too giddy. He began researching the disease in the early 1980s and later tested HIV-positive himself. If we ve learned anything from this disease, it s that the virus always fools us. In San Francisco, where the disease once ravaged the country s most densely populated gay community, years of progress have been reversed.
Recent studies show the rate of new infections has more than doubled in the past four years.
Nationwide, gay and bisexual men have more HIV infections than any other group, accounting for 40 percent of all new infections and 60 percent of new infections among men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. To Getty, these statistics are outrageous. He was infected through unprotected sex at a time when he didn t have the advantage of knowing a disease that could overpower his immune system could be sexually transmitted. If you get HIV-infected now, you don t have a future. Oh I ll just take a pill a day until I m an old man and everything will be fine.