It was in the title:
>> >REgarding AIDS and Africa:
>Men, in
>general, visit prostitutes when they are displaced
>from their usual sources of sexual intercourse.
>Africa has far more men on the move than most other
>places, and therefore, presumably, is a bigger
>prostitution market.
Big generalisations involved here. You really think that African cities have as a big a prostitution market than say, Amsterdam or London? Or that people are more mobile in Africa than they are in Europe? These are just your fears projected as generalisations.
>The predominance of itinerant
>workers, prostitutes and truck drivers as vectors of
>infection in Africa is easily explicable by fairly
>obvious social causes, as is their relative absence in
>Europe (after the fact -- more on your curious
>attitude to predictions below).
'Relative absence of truck drivers and prostitutes in Europe' ! Surreal. Even the 'itinerant workers' part is doubtful. Europe has considerable migrant labour and itinerant labour.
Daniel further goes on to say that my factual statement of the divergence of predicted rates of AIDS infection from the actual was more than 100 per cent
>
>is pretty weak.
Quite what that means, I'm not sure. Does he mean that it is not true? Does he impute an argument to it. I did not set out one. I said, as I have said throughout that rates of AIDS infection were massively exaggerated by health authorities. If Daniel agrees with me, what is he shouting about. If not, then why not.
>In the first place, has it not
>struck you that forecasting is difficult?
Yes, and the forecasters covered their backs by giving a remarkably wide spread - but still the actual figures fell way below the lower limit and even much more below the upper limit by a factor of about ten to one. No. This was not statistical error. It was an attempt to manipulate the figures to achieve a political result.
>
>Second, the projection was made in anticipation that
>someone would do something about it. It did not
>(because could not) anticipate that the policy
>reaction that it recommended.
If you are trying to say that the government propaganda campaign against sexual intercourse was successful, you are mistaken. Figures for gonorrhoea and NSU rose exponentially, while AIDS infection rates did not.
>
>Finally, you and Chris are affecting a wounded-fawn
>surprise at why the reaction to your assertions is so
>vehement. I can't believe that this confusion is
>wholly genuine. People are pissed off because you are
>asserting that gay men are dying of AIDS because of
>their behaviour rather than because of a disease.
>Which is very close to saying that it's their fault.
That's just rubbish. You impute some anti-gay motivation to me without any justification whatsoever. If the truth is that the rates of infection were not as anticipated, you cannot hide that truth by saying that facts are somehow anti-gay.
>If you don't actually believe that, you've been very
>reckless in not making it clear what you are saying.
This just says more about your own weird prejudices than it does about anything else. If you really think that the facts should be suppressed to achieve a preferred moral result then you've lost it as far as I'm concerned.
The idea that gay rights were advanced in any sense by scaring the straight population with unwarranted fears of catching AIDS is surreal. The opposite is the case. Prejudice against Gays rocketed along with the government's 'safe sex' campaign, unsurprisingly. -- James Heartfield