(Untitled)

[insaint]

I saw a commercial for Valtrex while watching CSI. (Yes, I watch CSI. It's one of my guilty pleasures when it comes to TV

Comments

[grey_and_purple]

It seems to me more like butt-covering than anything else -- because it hasn't actually been tested in same-sex couples, they're afraid to be seen as making any claims regarding same.

[the_real_crispy]

I suspect that the rider about same-sex couples means that the testing showed a reduction in transmission rates for vaginal sex, but it was untested (or most likely the sample size was too small) for anal sex.

[melted_snowball]

But, but, oh, never mind. It's just going to help if I get annoyed when people assign behaviours to sexual orientations.

You're probably right, though.

[the_real_crispy]

Agreed, but they do. Hell, I even read a CBC report this morning that says "Men who have sex with men ... are most at risk for HIV/AIDS.". Grumble, grumble.... the ability to separate the sex of the people involved in the acts and the acts themselves demonstrates a serious lack of critical thinking.

Of course, this isn't really much of a surprise.

[melted_snowball]

Yes, that's stupid, too, though tatements of that form are at least much more accurate than "gay men are at most risk for HIV/AIDS"; plenty of non-gay men have sex with men, and plenty of men who have sex with men are at very low risk for HIV/AIDS. (Me, for example.)

I don't object at all to "men who have sex with men make up the largest share of people with HIV/AIDS" (moving from "risk" to actual numbers); that statement is correct, even if it elides how they seroconverted, which may not have been through any sex act at all.

But in the case of this herpes drug, it's just dumb: I expect that more men have anal sex with women than with men, just because more men have sex with women, and lots of men and women like anal sex.