Warning: include(/home/queerty/public_html/commented.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/queerty/public_html/queer/health/smoke-hiv-everyday-20060921.php on line 105
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/queerty/public_html/commented.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/queerty/public_html/queer/health/smoke-hiv-everyday-20060921.php on line 105
Editorial Director
David Hauslaib | Email
Editor
Andrew Belonsky | Email
Publisher
Jossip Initiatives
A journal called Sexually Transmitted Infections - they have a journal for everything, don't they? - just released a report that reveals a link between smoking cigarettes and HIV. Apparently, smokers have a greater chance of contracting the disease than non-smokers.
365 Gay reports:
The scientists write that tobacco smoke may enhance vulnerability to infection by modifying the structure of the lungs and changing an array of immune system responses, including curbs on the production of antibodies and the activity of infection fighting white cells.
Hmmm, sounds a bit suspicious. We buy the bit about smoking and a decrease in antibodies, but we're talking about HIV, not the flu. Maybe the study would be more convincing if the information had been correlated with said smokers' sexual orientations, races, economic classes. But, we're not doctors.
Perhaps what they meant to say was that smokers are promiscuous slags who refuse to wear condoms while shooting up with dirty needles. Our parents always told us that smoking was bad, but this is ridiculous.
It may be comforting to hear, however, that there's no evidence to prove that HIV positive smokers are more likely to develop full-blown AIDS. Gee, that's a relief.
holla@queerty.com
Gay Cruises
Funny Shit
Warning: include(/home/queerty/public_html/ad_network_370.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/queerty/public_html/assets/sidebar_footer_pages.php on line 70
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/queerty/public_html/ad_network_370.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/queerty/public_html/assets/sidebar_footer_pages.php on line 70
Put your ad here
The link with HIV transmission probably has more to do with psychological factors than biological ones: namely, that smokers are, in general, more likely to make riskier choices in all parts of their lives. (Everyone knows a few "social smokers," people who smoke only while drinking, another "risky" activity.) Those greater risks that smokers are willing to take probably extends to sexual risk-taking. Speaking generally, of course. It'd be interesting to know if this study looked at the broader risks that smokers take besides, well, choosing to smoke.
Deuce makes a good point. Correlation vs. cause. That image is gross by the way. Makes me want to quit smoking.
I can't wait for NYC's HIV Forum to form a Nicotine Working Group and start holding community forums decrying the proven link between smoking and HIV infection.
Can we look forward to "Buy Marlboro Lights, Get HIV Free!" ads on phone booths all up and down 8th Avenue?
I think the study was just talking about methols. I don't know a gay man who smokes Newports who does not have HIV. Some of the straight ones too.
That's ridiculous! I will need hard facts and evidence before I believe anything, in general. "May" and "greater chance" are not scientific terms. I need numbers, please. A link? There are links between everything! Quantify it.
New studies come out every day and many of them contradict each other. If anything, these smokers might be psychologically different from the non-smokers and that would explain a greater HIV infection rate (as Deuce La Cock mentioned.) Of course, that is conjecture on my part. The difference is that I do not DARE represent my speculation as solid fact.