Gay and Bi Men in the Crosshairs

As our new President takes office, I will still be feeling that chill up my spine I felt when I saw the Web site for the "HIV Stops With Me" ad series (www.hivstopswithme.org). Aired in San Francisco, the TV ads derive from what the CDC calls "alarming" statistics showing a rise in unprotected sex among gay and bisexual men. The ads were funded by the CDC and the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

These ads don't just "target" local men in the PR sense -- they put these men square in the sniper crosshairs. The message couldn't be clearer, with a funereal black page and the logline jumping out in flaming red -- "HIV+ gay and bisexual men have the power to stop the epidemic."

Really? HIV-positive gay and bi men have that power even as AIDS is declared a global security threat by the UN, and a national security threat by Washington? As the media declare that "millions are dying all over the world," and these estimated millions are said to be mainly heterosexual women and children? So what's behind these ads?

Earlier this year, U.S. AIDS policy underwent a paradigm shift. The CIA and NSA (National Security Agency) were given oversight over AIDS. The nation's public-health system is now virtually on a wartime footing -- meaning that uniforms, not white labcoats, are in charge. CDC's website has a bioterrorist-alert page, equating AIDS with anthrax attacks by Iraq. Noting this shift, South African President Thabo Mbeki voiced concerns over CIA interference in his country's AIDS controversy. AIDS apologists snidely dismissed Mbeki as paranoid. Doubtless Mbeki reviewed the CIA's long history of covertly involving U.S. troops in other countries' affairs -- notably Vietnam, Guatemala, Colombia -- and felt a chill of his own.

In short, epidemic disease is now the excuse for U.S. and U.N. interference in certain countries' political affairs. Behind its family-friendly fa*ßade, the CDC is a major player in international public-health wars. When Ebola virus broke out in Uganda recently, the CDC was one of the first on the scene.

If we translate the CDC/SFDPH ads into political English, the message is: HIV-positive gay and bi men are responsible for the AIDS epidemic -- because those who "cause" it are the ones who can "stop" it. These men could be held accountable by military intelligence for any real (or perceived) failure to act as the government demands.

As an old CIA watcher, dating from the sixties and seventies when I helped cover cold-war politics as a Reader's Digest editor, I suspect these ads are what spooks call "disinformation" (government-speak for propaganda). The federal government is retooling the 1980s "gay plague" for use in today's domestic political arena. For maximum credibility it launches the reinvention in gaydom's flagship city, San Francisco. Yet, internationally, the U.S. carefully refrains from talk of gays ending AIDS, and pours billions into fighting an AIDS that is "everybody's disease." Hence the hypocrisy, as Washington speaks with a forked tongue about AIDS.

It won't be the first time that homosexuals are deemed "security risks." In the 1950s, the McCarthy hearings trained their crosshairs on gay men in sensitive government jobs.

And this is not the first time I've mentioned the shell games that public-health officials play with some statistics while trying to justify their demands for funding and public support. The CDC has taken notice of my comments, and sent a letter to A&U defending their crosshairing of gay and bi men (see this issue's Mailbox). Ronald O. Valdiserri, deputy director of CDC's national Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, insists that "men who have sex with men (MSM) still represent the single largest share of new infections, estimated to account for more than 40 percent of all new HIV infections." In his September 15 letter, Dr. Valdiserri adds that heterosexual men and women account for thirty-three percent of new infections. I can't help wondering about the sexual orientation of the remaining plus or minus twenty-seven percent. Is it lesbian and bi women? No -- according to the CDC, the mystery remainder is injection drug users, which is not a sexual orientation. Here we see the fallacy of "risk group" statistics -- they don't always add up. And they're just estimates, because -- as the CDC admits in its own fine print -- the counters don't always know the risk in reported cases.