From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: HIV is no hoax !
Date: 14 Jun 1995

ak962@lafn.org (Michael Shaw) wrote:


>>Rich:
>
>>For someone supposedly knowledgable about health to deny this fact is
>>shocking.
>>
>>Still....
>>
>>Before AIDS, you may have heard of Hepatitis, which was always at much
>>higher incidence in the groups mentioned. But, here's a good one from a
>>recent issue of the Omega Journal of Death and Dying (Dr. Paul
>>Cameron)--
>>
>>The median age at death of homosexuals who die of AIDS is 39.
>>
>>The median age at death of homosexual men who die of causes other than
>>AIDS is 42.



Comment:  Does Cameron give a reference?  I cannot imagine where he
would get the figure for homosexual life span in the absense of AIDS,
since homosexuality is not something the doctor checks off on the death
certificate, and surely not something the country mortality stats
record.  Do you suppose a few of such folks might just... well... slip
through?

The only place I can imagine any stats on gay male mortality coming from
would be things like the San Francisco Men's Health study, and even here
they are going to be skewed if there is any age censoring at all in the
inclusion criteria, or even if there is any censoring from willingness
to participate in the study, both of which are inevitable.  Do openly
gay men in San Francisco have a higher mortality than gays in the
closet?   Or gays in (say) Iowa?  It's easy to imagine so.

Finally, I should note that any study of mortality in gay men needs to
compare not AIDS-death age with non-AIDS-death age, since a certain
number of HIV-positive men commit suicide, and don't get classed as AIDS
deaths, and a certain number of HIV-positive people also die of medical
causes related to HIV and don't get classed as AIDS-deaths (the Liberace
set).  What we're REALLY after, therefore, is life expectancy of
**HIV-negative gay men**.  I've love to have that number if you have it.
 But I don't think you do.


                                                   Steve Harris, M.D.