The Gay Courier has been established to provide news, information and info on, from and about the gay community, and other social events and happenings from around the world, from all sorts of sources, to all who are interested in this news, information and info!
The postings are as is, and all copyrights and or ownerships are and remain with the original copyright-holder and or owner!
usuncut.com - Native
Americans attempting to stop a pipeline from being built on their land
and water just got assistance from a large herd of wild buffalo.
Indigenous culture honors American bison (known as Tat...
Council demands to know if you are straight, gay, lesbian or transgender - before it does your recycling
Updated
ByJim Hardy, Stephen Jones
Suffolk County Council is asking householders about age,
race, religion and what sexual orientation they are - along with
disabilities, including whether they are HIV+
The council wants to know your sexual orientation - to do your recycling
A council want to know if people are straight, gay , lesbian or transgender - before it does their recycling.
Public-spirited residents who recycle tin cans, empty bottles and old newspapers to help the planet have reacted with outrage.
In
a survey about opening hours and the way the recycling centres are laid
out, Suffolk County Council (SCC) has also asked householders to detail
their age, race, religion and what sexual orientation they are.
There are also being asked questions about disabilities - including whether they have HIV.
Although
the survey said declaring yourself to be straight, gay or transgender
is an 'optional' question, many people have taken to social media to
complain about it being asked at all.
WESSEX NEWS AGENCY
Residents have reacted with outrage after being quizzed by the council
Ian C asked the council: "What does it matter how many transgender individuals recycle their rubbish?"
Alison
M posted: "I can understand why Suffolk County Council need to know
whether disabled people use their sites, but as for sexual orientation,
it is no one's business."
The recycling survey is not the first
time Suffolk County Council has poked its nose into people's personal
habits and background.
Similar questions were included in a
survey about the Orwell River Crossing in Ipswich and about the plans
for a new bus station in Sudbury.
WESSEX NEWS AGENCY
Should authorities need to know such detail to process your old tin cans?
A council spokesman denies it is prying, and said the answers were
needed "to find out about the diversity of those who contributed".
He
said it was "entirely optional whether people filled in that part of
the survey and their answers to the rest of the questions would be
considered anyway".
He added: "It is important to know what people with
disabilities or illnesses think about our services and it is important
that we try to encourage diversity.
"We need to know that not everyone is the same."
The
council told social media critics: "SCC understands that you may feel
these questions are intrusive and highly personal. The information you
submit is voluntary but it does make a difference."
People still don't seem convinced - among other social media
comments today, 'Suffolk Exlie' posted: "The only question out of that
list that is of any relevance is disability - can someone whose
disability restricts their mobility use the facilities at the site?"
Time
Traveller added: "I object to being asked my ethnicity and sexual
preferences on a survey where this shouldn't be an issue, so every time I
see one I fill it in with incorrect details (which makes it even more
meaningless)."
gaytimes.co.uk - In an
opinion piece for the Daily Star, the reality TV personality condemned
homophobia in sport, particularly football, and questioned why gay
players don’t feel comfortable or safe enough to come...
This is a new annual survey to gather credible data on public
attitudes to particular issues related to sexual orientation, gender
identity, gender expression and sex characteristics on every continent,
and this release comes just a few days ahead of World Statistics Day to be celebrated on October 20.
Developed in cooperation with the Canadian technology company RIWI Corp. and in partnership with the US entertainment brand Logo, the survey collected answers to 31 questions from 96,331 online individuals in 65 countries.
Significantly, the survey reached environments highly hostile to LGBTI
people, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, resulting in the largest investigation of attitudes towards LGBTI people around the world ever conducted.
Click here to download the report: The Personal and the Political: Attitudes towards LGBTI People around the World
While the first report, released in May 2016, looked at sexual orientation as its predominant subject, this second output, titled The Personal and the Political: Attitudes towards LGBTI People around the World,
allows a deeper analysis into global attitudes also to gender identity,
gender expression and to a lesser extent, intersex issues. It also
shows relevant differences in how people respond at a personal level to encountering LGBTI people or issues, when compared to more ideological or political attitudes they may hold.
At a global average, for example, this survey shows that 67% of the world (strongly or somewhat) agrees that human rights should be applied to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
“All the countries surveyed returned results over 50% in
favour of this proposition, even those considered among the most hostile
to sexual and gender minorities,” comments Aengus Carroll, co-author of the research. “This clearly demonstrates that countries’ legal policy and international practice can be very contradictory when compared to attitudes declared by their citizens.”
When people know each other first-hand, a de-stigmatising effect is
often produced, countering the stereotyping too often perpetuated by
religious and political leaders, as well as in media. At the global
level, 46% of respondents know someone lesbian, gay or bisexual, while only 28% of respondents directly know someone who does not identity with the gender they were assigned at birth, or identifies as transgender.
Data also seem to show that wide awareness of issues related to sex characteristics, or intersex, still needs to emerge in societies,
as 38% of respondents have no opinion on whether children whose sex
characteristics are unclear at birth should be surgically assigned a
gender by medical professionals, and not by a person looking after the
welfare of the child.
Other data seem to show a significant bridge between what people feel
is permissible at the personal level and the laws that govern sexual
behaviour and expression: 38% of respondents globally feel that adults should be allowed to have private, consensual same-sex relationships.
Interestingly, when extending the question to a matter of law (‘Should
being lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or intersex be a crime?’), it is
seen that only 26% feel that such behaviours or expressions should be criminalized.
“Public attitudes in both hostile and friendly nations are not as extremely negative as might have been feared,” commented Renato Sabbadini, Executive Director at ILGA. “However, this does not erase the fact that violence and discrimination inflicted on sexually and gender diverse people all around the world continues unabated,
and indeed is increasing in places. Too often we still see sexual and
gender minorities being convenient scapegoats for leaders who are
looking for support from more conservative sectors of their society.”
Proponents of traditional values often attempt to denaturalize
diversity by framing it as something chosen or adopted in a person,
rather than being an innate attribute. At the global level, only one quarter (23%) of respondents seem to feel people are ‘born that way,’ and only 21% of the world either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ disagree that gender is assigned at birth and always fixed.
On the other hand, though, it is evident that attitudes are changing: 52% of respondents either strongly or somewhat agree that bullying of LGBT young people is a significant problem; 65% of respondents globally have ‘no concerns’ if their neighbour were gay or lesbian (with extremes ranging from a 43% found in Africa to the 83% recorded in Oceania). Virtually identically, at the global level 64% of respondents would have no concerns if they were unable to identify their neighbour’s gender at first sight.
“Sexual and gender minorities are often the first
casualty when traditional values are being appealed to,” comment Ruth
Baldacchino and Helen Kennedy, Co-Secretaries General at ILGA. “This is
why this global survey, with its evidence-based and non-anecdotal data, is a powerful tool for the advancement of human rights of LGBTI people
around the world: it offers significant opportunity to inform the
public about actual prevailing attitudes, and thereby assist not only
LGBTI human rights defenders, but also agencies and governments, as well
as regional and international organisations, in the efforts to reduce
stigmatization of LGBTI people. Information and knowledge can
indeed contribute to changing the world and the lived realities of many
people worldwide who are still facing human rights violations.”
Key figures:
96,331 respondents completed the full battery of 31 questions on
perceptions of LGBTI people. Data were collected from 65 States. The
analysis focused on the 54 of them with more than 700 respondents each: 9
African States (eight of them criminalising States), 15 from Asia (of
which six are criminalising States), 16 from the Americas (two
criminalising States), 12 from Europe, and two States from Oceania. The
survey went out in 22 languages, and was live for 60 days. Methodology:
The survey fielding approach for this study used RIWI Corp.’s (www.riwi.com)
patented Random Domain Intercept Technology™, which targets random Web
users around the world, including remote locations, who are surfing
online through an anonymous opt-in survey. More detail on the global
RIWI survey system, which collects no personally identifiable
information, may be found here: http://riwi.com.
advocate.com - Chris
Schwartz, who is running for a position on Black Hawk County, Iowa’s
Board of Supervisors, claims that the home he shares with his boyfriend
was vandalized with death threats following a conf...
Most
sports fans in England, Wales and Scotland say they would be
comfortable with their club signing a gay player, according to a BBC
Radio 5 live survey.
It found 82% of supporters would have no issue with a gay player.
However, 8% of football fans said they would stop watching their team.
Last week, Football Association chairman Greg Clarke told MPs he was "cautious" of encouraging a player to come out because they may suffer "significant abuse" from fans.
Speaking
to BBC Radio 5 live on Wednesday, Clarke said he stood by his "personal
view" that "vile abuse" from a "small minority on the terraces" must be
solved before any gay footballers "take that risk" to come out.
"If
they want to take that risk I would respect them and support them,"
said Clarke. "But we can't promise to provide them at the moment with
the required protection. We need to redouble our efforts to provide that
safe space."
Clarke added that he hoped to achieve that in a "year or two".
In
an online survey of more than 4,000 people - 2,896 of whom were sports
fans - commissioned by Afternoon Edition and carried out by ComRes, 71%
of football fans said clubs should do more to educate fans about
homophobia.
And 47% of all sports fans - 50% of football supporters - say they have heard homophobic abuse at matches.
Former Premier League striker Chris Sutton told Afternoon Edition that Clarke had "taken the easy way out" by being "dictated to by 8% of cavemen".
Sutton,
who played for Norwich, Blackburn, Chelsea and Celtic, said: "Coming
out wouldn't be a problem in the workplace. Working at a football club
is just like anywhere else. Players I played with wouldn't bat an
eyelid.
"This 8% shouldn't be allowed in football grounds. By not
taking it on, the 8% are the winners in all of this. Greg Clarke should
be taking these people on.
"It's bonkers in our society that people like this can dictate whether someone can come out or not."
5 live polled more than 4,000 people into attitudes about homophobia in sportSimone
Pound, head of equality and diversity at the Professional Footballers'
Association, told BBC Sport the PFA and the FA were not "blaming any one
particular group" for a lack of visibly out gay players.
"I have
worked in the game for over 15 years and I have certainly seen a shift
in the culture as well as greater understanding and acceptance of LGBT
people," she said.
"Coming out is a personal journey that is up to
each and every individual. The PFA will continue our work tackling
homophobia until someone does come out and thereafter."
An FA
spokesman said it "welcomed the statistics" as a "sense check" on
homophobia. It said it takes "strong action" against anyone found guilty
of "homophobic, biphobic or transphobic abuse".
5 live polled more than 4,000 people into attitudes about homophobia in sportOn
Wednesday, gay rugby league player Keegan Hirst, 28, guest edits a
special Afternoon Edition programme on homophobia in sport on BBC Radio 5
live from 13:00 BST.
The survey of fans of 11 different sports also found:
More sports fans (12%) would feel uncomfortable with a rival player joining their club than a gay player (8%)
7% of sports fans would stop watching their team if they signed a gay player
57% of sports fans believe gay players should come out to help others do the same
18% of sports fans believe gay players should "keep it to themselves"
15% of sports fans think having a gay player on a team would make other team-mates feel uncomfortable
50% of football fans say they have heard homophobic abuse, 51% have heard sexist abuse and 59% have heard racist abuse
Are there any gay footballers?
Justin
Fashanu became the first player in England to come out as gay in 1990,
but took his own life in 1998, aged 37. No male professional player has
since come out while playing in England.
Former Germany and Aston Villa player Thomas Hitzlsperger became the first player with Premier League experience to publicly reveal his homosexuality, in January 2014, after he had finished playing in England.
American ex-Leeds United winger Robbie Rogers announced his retirement at the same time as revealing he was gay, saying it was "impossible" to come out and remain in the game, although he subsequently returned to football with American team LA Galaxy.
Former
England women's captain Casey Stoney was the first active footballer to
come out in England since Fashanu, in February 2014.
Swedish
lower league player Anton Hysen, son of former Liverpool player Glenn
Hysen, publicly announced his homosexuality in an interview with a
Swedish football magazine in 2011.
How does the UK compare globally?
Out On The Fields,
a two-year global study of homophobia in sport, examined the experience
for players and spectators in English-speaking countries including the
UK, United States, Canada and Australia.
Study manager Erik Denison said "rates of homophobia in sport were rampant right around the world".
He
told BBC Radio 5 live that the UK had "many more" young people willing
to come out to their team-mates than in other countries, but that LGBT
spectators felt they were "not very safe" at sporting events in
comparison.
He said: "What was a bit alarming in the UK was that
young people were more likely than older generations to say that they
had personally been targeted by homophobia in the form of slurs,
bullying, and assaults."
My tweet was 'totally wrong'
Coventry City defender Chris Stokes was banned, fined and sent on an FA education course after tweeting the word "faggots" when commenting on a Chelsea-Tottenham Premier League match in May.
He apologised, immediately removed the tweet and told BBC Radio 5 live that "what I said was totally wrong".
The 25-year-old added: "Nowadays, how the world is, it is a great time for someone who is gay to come out.
"They would get the full support from the changing room - and hopefully the full support of people in the stand." Listen to Keegan Hirst on Afternoon Edition from 13:00 BST on Wednesday, 26 October.
The Supreme Court said it would decide whether a transgender boy may use the
boys’ bathroom in a Virginia high school.
The legal question in the
case is whether the Obama administration was entitled to interpret a regulation
under Title IX, a 1972 law that bans discrimination “on the basis of
sex” in schools that receive federal money, as banning discrimination
based on gender identity.
GOP nominee Donald Trump does not believe that settlements built by
the Zionist regime of Israel in Palestine are illegal, his advisor on
Israel says.
David Friedman, who was campaigning for the New York billionaire at a
restaurant on Mount Zion (Jabel Sahyoun) in East Jerusalem al-Quds,
made the comments to AFP after the Wednesday rally.
“I don’t think he believes that the settlements are illegal,” Friedman said.
He also said the former reality TV star is “tremendously skeptical”
about the so-called two-state solution, promoted by the Democratic
administration of President Barack Obama during his eight years in
office, but to no avail.
The Obama administration has already voiced criticism over Tel Aviv’s
expansionist policies, considered illegal by the international
community.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the
occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to
establish peace in the Middle East.
Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal
settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories of the West Bank.
All Israeli settlements are illegal under the international law. Tel
Aviv has defied calls to stop the settlement expansion in the occupied
Palestinian territories. Guaranteeing enmity with Tehran
Some 150 people, including extremist Israelis and evangelical Christians, took part in the Trump rally in on Wednesday.
Friedman echoed previous remarks by Trump, saying the real estate
mogul would recognize East Jerusalem al-Quds as the capital of Israel if
he wins the White House in the US 2016 presidential election.
A short video message by Trump was also played at the event, in which
he said, “Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on
destroying Israel and her people. Together we will make America and
Israel safe again.”
According to leaked emails from March 2015 by former US secretary of
state Colin Powell, the regime has pointed 200 nuclear weapons at the
Iranian capital.
nbcnews.com - Donald Trump
accused Hillary Clinton of starting the birther controversy but Trump's
own son praised his dad for "starting the conversation" about where
Barack Obama was born. Eric Trump's comments...
The
case for Planet Nine is growing. Scientists have uncovered more hints
for the existence of this distant, mysterious - and still unproven -
world in the motions of known solar system objects.
The
Canadian flight attendant blamed for bringing HIV to the U.S. and
triggering an epidemic that has killed nearly 700,000 people has been
exonerated by science, more than 30 years after his death.
huffingtonpost.com - Donald
Trump’s greatest fear is probably public humiliation ― and there’s a
decent chance he’s headed for a historic one. The most unpopular
presidential candidate in modern history is George McGov...
Jack
Smith took charge of his first senior international match earlier this
month in Moscow as Russia beat Spain in a World Cup qualifier
"I could feel myself drifting away. I couldn't move. Blood was pouring out of my chest and I thought 'this is it'."
On
a foggy, cold and grey morning in Leeds, former Royal Marine and now
rugby league referee Jack Smith describes the moment he came to terms
with death six years earlier.
He was shot by a Taliban sniper
while serving in Afghanistan on 21 August, 2010. The bullet passed
through his lower back, breaking ribs, hitting his liver, gall bladder,
spleen, diaphragm and right lung before exiting his upper chest.
Lying flat on a roof at the time, he quickly rolled off the building to avoid further fire and broke even more ribs on impact.
"You
lay there, your body shuts down and you don't think rationally," he
said. "You think 'I'm going to sleep and that'll be it'.
"Looking back, if someone says 'you lay there and think you are going to die' you would think you would have some emotion.
"But with your body shutting down you really don't think about anything, you just want to close your eyes and go to sleep."
It was 21 days later in Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital that he opened his eyes. For him, it was a blink in time.
He awoke with family by his side and questioned why they were in Afghanistan.
"I just didn't get it. It took me four or five days to get my head around it," said the 27-year-old.
As
Smith prepares to officiate in his first major international match, as
touch judge for Friday's Four Nations opener between Australia and
Scotland in Hull, he talks to BBC Sport about:
The moment his fellow Marines rallied to save his life
The breathless first steps in his recovery
How he has since gone on to establish himself as one of Britain's finest referees
'A hole in my chest'
Jack Smith was on his first tour of duty in 2010"Casualty". Smith looked up to see that fellow Charlie Company, 40 Commando Royal Marine Joe Leborgne had been shot in the arm.
As he attempted to reiterate the message, the words escaped him. Then came a sharp pain in his chest.
"I
had no breath because my lung had gone," he said. "When I pulled my
body armour forward there was a 10cm x 10cm hole in my chest."
It was when Smith got into position on the roof top that the sniper took aim and hit his mark.
"When
you lie down or crouch, the body armour lifts a tiny bit at the back,"
said Smith. "From 500 or 600 metres away, they only have a gap of a
centimetre of two.
"If you want to go for vital organs, that is
pretty much the only place they could have shot. They got it, so fair
play to them."
'They kept me alive'
Smith has kept the bullet he was shot withSmith
was trained to fight and survive. In this instance, his reaction was to
roll away. And with that, he rolled right off the roof.
"You are
well aware that if you have been shot up there, somebody's rifle is
trained on that area," he said. "It wasn't a conscious thing to get off,
it's part of your training.
"For the lads on the ground, the
first thing they see is me tumble onto the ground with a big hole in my
chest. They got to work on me and they are great at what they do.
"I
can name 20 people who were there on the ground who contributed to
saving my life. People who used themselves as a human shield as I was
carried on a stretcher and normal 20-year-old lads that perform stuff on
you to keep you alive - they do more trauma than a lot of surgeons
would."
'Hold on'
Referee Smith was five and a half months into a six-month deployment in Afghanistan when he was shot in 2010Smith was bleeding - and fast - as fellow commandos attended to him and attempted to get him out.
He
recalls one man in particular, Danny Green, holding his hand. The words
of encouragement to retain consciousness were familiar.
"Keep
your eyes open, squeeze my hand." They are the same words he uttered
weeks earlier as close friend and fellow marine Matthew Harrison was
killed.
"I'd been in the same situation Danny was in," said Smith.
"You hold their hand, telling them to keep their eyes open, keep
squeezing your hand.
"It was Danny doing it to me, but for whatever reason your body switches off."
Standing up again
Smith with wife Stacey, oldest son Jak and three-month-old son JosIncredible
fitness and state of health, as well as the fact that he had been shot
on his right side and not his left, all contributed to Smith's survival.
The capacity of his left lung was enough to see him through.
"It
was enough to power my body, to keep me alive when my right wasn't
working," she said. "The surgeon said that if I was slightly less fit, a
smoker and other various things, I would have passed away."
But he survived. And he has since thrived.
"I
remember the first time I stood up with the help of a few physios. I
stood for five seconds with two of them holding me and then slept for 12
hours because I was that tired."
With active duty no longer an
option as he could not wear body armour - it would sit directly on scar
tissue on his chest and back - he was medically discharged from the
Royal Marines.
Within six months of his rehabilitation he was jogging and even went on to play golf for Great Britain.
Smith,
an ambassador for the On Course Foundation, represented Britain in the
Simpson Cup, an annual tournament for injured servicemen and veterans,
against the USALife was changing. He moved into property investment, got married and six years later has two children with wife Stacey.
The
injuries and ongoing back pain caused by two slipped discs - the result
of falling off the roof - meant he could not return to rugby league,
which he played as a youngster.
Instead, the rugby league-mad lad from Wigan chose refereeing.
In
September 2012, he attended his first coaching course; two years later
during an academy match he impressed Steve Ganson - the former Super
League referee who is now the Rugby Football League head of match
officials - and in June he refereed his first Super League match.
Earlier in October he was added to the RFL's full-time panel of referees.
"There
is a tremendous story that Jack has, but ultimately you have to detach
yourself from that as a manager-coach and we have Jack in our group for
the skills he has a rugby league referee," said Ganson.
"He is an
unassuming bloke, but he is quietly determined. I'm hoping he will put
one or two of my real top blokes under some pressure. I think he is
determined to be successful and he has all the traits to do that."
'I'm a refereeing nerd'
Smith was a player with Crosfields before joining the Royal Marines in 2008As
he stands pitchside at Leeds Beckett University while a collection of
the world's best rugby league referees continue to prepare for the Four
Nations, Smith laughs at the notion that wearing shorts and t-shirt on a
cold autumn morning is extreme.
"In the Marines you are training in -5C or -10C temperatures all the time. This is tropical at 3C or 4C," he said.
And with that, an insight into his military approach to refereeing.
"It's
everything for me, my whole life," Smith said of being a Royal Marine.
"When I joined at 17 or 18, it was lifestyle changing from being a boy
to a man. It is embedded into everything I do.
"It helps me,
especially on weekends when it's a high-pressure scenario or situation
where someone might crumble or people might react differently."
His
remarkable rise up the refereeing ranks is one that Smith has relished,
but it is also one that he does not take for granted.
"If I can
get a tiny bit of information from every single senior ref here for the
Four Nations and use what I can, it will really improve me," said Smith.
"I'm
well aware that I'm behind people with experience, so where I can read
policies and rulings or group review notes, I will. For me, I've got to
do stuff above and beyond other people to get to where I want because of
my lack of time in the middle.
"I'm a refereeing nerd, which I never thought I'd be."
The Republican National Committee might have to pay the price for Donald Trump’s inflammatory statements about election rigging.
The Democratic National Committee on Thursday asked a judge to punish the RNC with an unspecified financial sanction
for violating an anti-voter intimidation agreement. The agreement came
about after a 1981 gubernatorial race in New Jersey, during which the
RNC allegedly engaged in a wide variety of voter suppression tactics.
According to court records, the RNC was accused of the following:
The
RNC allegedly created a voter challenge list by mailing sample ballots
to individuals in precincts with a high percentage of racial or ethnic
minority registered voters and, then, including individuals whose
postcards were returned as undeliverable on a list of voters to
challenge at the polls. The RNC also allegedly enlisted the help of
off-duty sheriffs and police officers to intimidate voters by standing
at polling places in minority precincts during voting with “National
Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. Some of the officers allegedly
wore firearms in a visible manner.
Although
the Republican candidate Tom Kean would go on to win, after the
election the RNC became severely restricted in how it can monitor
polling sites during elections.
For
months, the Republican nominee has been telling his supporters that the
election could be stolen in specific areas known to have sizeable
populations of minority voters and asked for supporters to volunteer as election observers. And, like in the New Jersey case, Trump has called on law enforcement to secure the sanctity of the franchise. Trump isn't bound by the consent decree, Vox's Dara Lind reports. However, the RNC could be in trouble if it's determined that they're supporting the candidate's election monitoring efforts.
As
a result, the DNC has asked a court to block any avenues the RNC has to
financially support Trump’s election watching efforts. They've also
asked that the RNC request reimbursements for any financial support for
those efforts they may have already sent.
The consent
decree regarding voter monitoring tactics is set to expire in Dec. 2017,
but could be extended for another eight years given the lawsuit from
the DNC, according toTalking Points Memo.
RNC officials argue that they haven't done anything wrong or coordinated with Donald Trump, calling the lawsuit “completely meritless.”
The
possibility of voter fraud has been a recurring theme of this election.
Members of the RNC have previously voiced concern about the prospect of
dead people voting
and said that Republican attorneys would be monitoring polling sites
around the country. However, the severity of voter fraud in American
elections is disputable. A 2014 study by a constitutional law expert at
Loyola University found ony 31 credible allegations of voter fraud since the 2000 election.
ATTN: has reached out to the RNC for comment and will update the story if we receive a reply.
No 'patient zero' in HIV epidemic, new research finds
Quebec man one of thousands of people infected when AIDS was first recognized
At
the height of the AIDS epidemic sweeping across North America, a 1987
New York Post headline screamed: "The Man Who Gave Us AIDS."
That
man was Gaétan Dugas, a gay flight attendant from Quebec who had died
of the disease three years earlier. He would be demonized as "patient
zero," the man whose promiscuous ways led to a public health crisis.
New research helps put an end to that idea, once and for all.
Researchers
based at the University of Arizona looked at the human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) in blood samples collected in the late 1970s, giving them a
snapshot of the virus at the time, and allowing them to reconstruct its
spread through North America in unprecedented detail.
"The
samples contain a large amount of genetic diversity. So much genetic
diversity that they could not have arisen from the late 1970s," says
Michael Worobey, one of the study's authors.
The
researchers believe the virus first jumped from Africa to the
Caribbean, before entering the U.S. around 1971, where it took hold in
New York City before spreading rapidly throughout the continent.
Oldest look at virus
Researchers
tested more than 2,000 blood samples collected from men who had sex
with men in New York City and San Francisco in 1978 and 1979.
Since
the genetic material of the virus had broken down considerably over
nearly four decades in the lab, they had to develop a new technique they
describe as "jackhammering" that allowed them to detect what was left
of the virus and analyze its genetic material.
In
the end, the researchers were able to recover nearly complete genetic
material in eight of the samples, offering them the earliest look at the
virus in North America.
The
recovered samples showed that the virus had enough genetic diversity to
indicate it had been spreading throughout the United States earlier
than previously thought, and earlier than AIDS was first recognized in
1981.
"It
does push back the date of the expansion of the epidemic in North
America further than we thought and gives us a better picture of how the
epidemic expanded," says Richard Harrigan, an HIV researcher at the
British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.
He
estimates there were probably 20,000 cases of HIV in North America when
reports of patients with a strange new disease — soon to be called AIDS
— first surfaced.
If
this was the case, then it means early efforts to trace the spread of
the disease by connecting the first AIDS patients were years too late.
Blaming 'patient zero'
Which brings us back to Gaétan Dugas.
He
was just one of the men included in an early study investigating the
sexual links between people with AIDS in Southern California.
At the time, he was only known as Case 057, and his name came up several times as researchers conducted their interviews.
When
the researchers began to code the study's patients, he was identified
as Patient O, the letter O standing for "Out(side)-of-California." But
O was soon mistaken as the number 0, and the name stuck.
Journalist Randy Shilts seized upon the idea of a "patient zero" in his 1987 bestselling history of the AIDS crisis, And the Band Played On, in
which Dugas was named for the first time. While the idea of a "patient
zero" has long been discredited by scientists who study the HIV
epidemic, it was an idea eagerly seized upon by the public.
In
the new study, the Arizona team of scientists decided to analyze the
HIV in a blood sample from Dugas that was collected in 1983. When
compared with the other eight samples, they found there was nothing to
suggest Dugas had a unique role in the spread of the virus.
Richard
McKay, a historian from Cambridge University who collaborated on the
research, says that blaming others has long been a way for societies to
create a difference between the majority and groups or individuals
identified as threats.
He hopes the mistake will
call into question the very idea of a patient zero, with its focus on
an individual, rather than the larger causes that lead to an epidemic.
"One
of the dangers of focusing on a single patient zero when discussing the
early phases of an epidemic is that we risk obscuring important
structural factors that might contribute to its development: poverty,
legal and cultural inequalities, barriers to health care and education,"
he says.
The research was published in today's advance online publication of Nature.
buzzfeed.com - The Obama
administration issued a rule on Tuesday that would bar contractors
administering foreign aid programs through USAID from discriminating
against LGBT people in providing services. “This ru...
huffingtonpost.com -
WASHINGTON ― North Carolina just lost another $250 million to HB 2, the
state’s controversial law that discriminates against lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender people. CoStar Group, a real esta...
18th October 2016 06:43
