It really is difficult to know which is the worst bit of this

[lovingboth]

As an adjunct to the story about circumcision and HIV risk - I've done a small bit on why this is mostly crap, but ask if you want more - in the Metro today was a paragraph or two:

Legalising prostitution would reduce the spead of sex diseases by half... Regular testing of sex workers would halt a dramatic rise in HIV cases in Britain. About 70 per cent of all STIs occur amongst prostitutes and their clients, a BMA study revealed.

Crap, dangerous crap, and even more dangerous crap.

It turns out that the longer version is here, and it has new levels of crap itself.

Incredibly, the source of the speech - not study - is Chris Spencer Jones, chair of the BMA public health committee.

Comments

[slightlyfoxed.livejournal.com]

You only need one person to sleep with someone in a different group and it spreads like wildfire.

...which is why, children, we need tighter curfews for boy bands.

(Am I reading too much into that - it is just a shiny nugget of biphobia, isn't it?)

[foibey.livejournal.com]

it is just a shiny nugget of biphobia, isn't it?

And homophobia, I suspect. As in "quick, stop the bisexuals, they're stopping us from quarantining the gays!"

And a few other sorts of nasty to boot.

[misspotsitt.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in info about the circumcision/HIV risk thing actually. I got into an argument not so long ago with someone who was very very pro-circumcision for every man (they were American, and as I am sure you are aware circumcision regardless of religion or medical need is very common there) and the only thing that seemed to be in favour of circumcision was the idea that it somehow reduced HIV infection, but I couldn't understand how to be honest.

[foibey.livejournal.com]

Huh?

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Apart from the biphobia, which bits are you specifically disagreeing with? Is the stat about 70% of STIs coming from prostitutes at all accurate (it's a new one on me)?
*If* so, legalisation sounds like *part* of a solution...

[lovingboth]

Just looking at the the first three...

Prostitution is already legal. You can happily say "I will have sex with you for money" almost anywhere except on a street (and that was only criminalised in 1959), and actually do it legally.

He also wants mandatory inspections, i.e. a return to the Contagious Diseases Acts which did so much to reduce prostitution and STIs in Victorian times (ha!) The idea that it's more than the most marginal contribution to HIV infections also complete crap. In the UK, new diagnoses of HIV are still overwhelmingly as a result of sex between men plus immigration by people already infected, usually from sub-Saharan Africa.

Yep, that stat is complete and utter crap. The idea that it's anything like that level, either nationally or over time, is dangerously wrong.

It's either horrible sample error or, just possibly, something like one localised pox outbreak. One happened in Edinburgh a while back, just as many more are linked to the gay scene in various cities. But that is going to be time as well as location-limited and I'd expect some honesty about that. I don't think it's any coincidence that I can't find anything like this anywhere in any peer-reviewed journal.

Instead, there's lots of evidence to say "very high levels of condom use = low levels of infection" within sex work.

Ward H, Day S, Green A, Cooper K, Weber JN. Declining prevalence of STI in the London sex industry, 1985 to 2002. Sex Transm Infect 2004,80:374–6

.. is a recent UK one, available free from their website.

Even his prevalence figures are suspect. By 1994, what was then the West Midlands health authority had had over 800 HIV diagnoses - with a population of 2.6m, that's over ten times his claimed 0.002%, and 90% of them weren't dead by that point.

Speaking of which, he's also ignoring one of the big (and good) reasons for increasing prevalence: combination therapy stops people with HIV dying with Aids. When a sub-population stops dying off, of course it gets bigger!

(If any of this sounds like it's aimed at you, sorry, it's not intended to, but arrggghhhh, someone give this guy a clue. Or get him to admit his Issues, because there have to be some somewhere behind this.)

[lovingboth]

I had my 'ah ha' moment on the way home.

Just how crap is that 70% figure?

Even in sexual health clinics just for sex workers, the percentage of STIs down to sex work is less than that!

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

How would you tell if a sex worker had got their STI from sex work or, erm, non-work sex?

But yes, what you say about sex workers being a tiny source of HIV etc compared with MSM and people coming from prevalent areas, sounds like what I've always read.
I suspect this chap has had his stats taken out of context.

[lovingboth]

Ask them :) If they don't do, say, anal sex with clients but do with their private partner(s) and have the clap in their bum, you can have a good guess about where it came from.