Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to Here comes the next bad bug...

Too serious to trivialize

You might want to (re)read the article and reconsider your anti-homosexual rant. Your sensational tag line, "hitting hardest among homosexual men", comes from the first paragraph of the article. Did you read past that?

The biggest thing you missed is that MRSA isn't a sexually-transmitted disease. It's actually scarier than that: it's "transmitted by skin contact, with no need for an open wound." Specifically,

The disease is not thought to be sexually transmitted, but as it is contagious through skin contact, sexual promiscuity has an indirect effect on risk. Its effects are not confined to HIV-positive men.

Because it's vector isn't primarily sexual, "[non-homosexual] athletes and schoolchildren involved in contact sports have also fallen ill." You're not really accusing schoolchildren of "rampant and indiscriminate promiscuity", are you? Athletes maybe, but schoolkids?

This could be a serious threat to everybody, and I don't think it's a good idea to trivialize it by using it as another pretext to scold homosexuals. Dragging out the tired "homosexuals bring it on themselves" rhetoric could be harmful--it might cause non-homosexuals to not take it seriously, and perhaps not seek medical attention when they should; and it might delay public health efforts in the face of the political resistance of homophobes.

--Robert

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