Few Men Found to Get HIV in Prison - popular assumptions refuted (CDC)

[pinto]

Interesting article. It's making the rounds in Public Health circles.

Few Men Found to Get HIV in Prison

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006; A09

Although male prisoners have a relatively high rate of HIV infection, very few of them acquire the virus while behind bars, according to a federal study that is the largest and longest one to look at the issue.

About 90 percent of HIV-positive men in Georgia's prison system -- the nation's fifth largest -- were infected before they arrived, the study found. Over a 17-year period, 88 men became infected in prison by the virus that causes AIDS, chiefly through same-sex intercourse. Georgia prisons currently house about 45,000 men.

The study, published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, refutes the widespread impression that U.S. prisons are hotbeds of the AIDS epidemic, and that incarceration contributes directly to the high rate of HIV among black men, who make up the majority of male prisoners in many states.

The study revealed a surprising and unexplored aspect of HIV infection in prisoners. Of the men who became infected behind bars and acknowledged having gay sex there, half reported that their partners were prison staff members, not other inmates. Whether guards were the source infection, or became infected themselves, in any of those liaisons is unknown.

Nearly three-quarters of inmates who reported having had sex with other men described it as consensual. Nearly one-third of those said they used condoms or an improvised protective method such as rubber gloves or plastic wrap.

"Both inmates and society as a whole have long held the belief that transmission is common among prison inmates. The interesting thing about this study is that it directly contradicts that," he (Richard Tewksbury, a professor of justice administration at the University of Louisville) said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/20/AR2006042001868_pf.html

[Poppyseedman]

1. Actual study

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5515a1.htm?s_cid=mm5515a1_e

My only beef is the study is one prison system with a small sample and certainly not a case study be to draw any larger conclusions from, which I'm sure the MSM media will endlessly claim now as fact.

[pinto]

2. Thanks for the CDC link. As I read, it's a 17 year study/45,000 inmates.

[salin]

3. *sigh* - sadly my cynicism has grown so high per

any report/study put out by a govt agency under bush. Too many times we have learned about political hacks forcing the alteration reports. This study could be true, but until we know that there is an end to the politicization of science and research by the Bushco - I can't put any stock into any govt study. Sad state of affairs - no way to tell what is legitimate research and what is politicized bs.

H#ll - Congress tried to stop the practice of political inteference by requiring studies to go to Congress (you know, oversight) without political interefence into content - and Bush signed this into law... and then inserted into the record an extraconstitutional "signing statement" stating that he would comply or not comply as suited his administration's ability to 'conduct business'.