MSM behaviour is risky
Published:Tuesday | May 20, 2014 | 12:00 AM
Why have these 35 advocacy groups taken this adversarial position against Professor Brendan Bain, one of the Caribbean's foremost clinical infectious-diseases practitioners? The report he submitted to the Belize Supreme Court reflects impeccable scholarship, drawing on his own extensive work with HIV/AIDS, as well other research done elsewhere, including Belize.
Professor Bain's contribution to the struggle against HIV/AIDS has been widely recognised and he has been honoured twice by the Jamaica National AIDS Committee.
His report referred to many published studies. Drs Gough and Edwards published a study on the 'HIV seroprevalence and associated risk factors among male inmates at the Belize Central Prison' in the Pan-American Journal of Public Health in 2009. Professor Bain referred to this study, which indicated that "there was a higher relative risk of contracting HIV by men who have sex with men in Belize". Findings such as these are old hat, as they are replicated all over the world.
The simple and incontrovertible fact is that MSM behaviour is risky and is the largest contributor to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The nation has to shoulder the enormous cost of HIV/AIDS and cannot encourage any behaviour, private or otherwise, which contributes to it.
I suspect that few, if any, of the groups requiring Prof Bain's removal bothered to read his report. That they are baying for his blood says much about their desire to keep the truth about the consequences of homosexual behaviour hidden at all costs.
Michael Nicholson