Bryan Fischer
The "gay disease" about to get very expensive for taxpayers
By Bryan Fischer
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The term "gay disease" to refer to HIV/AIDS is not mine. In fact, it comes from the homosexual community itself. Columnist Todd Heywood just a year ago on a pro-gay website headlined his column, "LISTEN: HIV Is Still a Gay Disease." (You can read his piece here.)
Well, the gay disease is just about to get exorbitantly expensive for American taxpayers.
According to the UK newspaper, The Independent, an HIV pill (Truvada) has been developed that reduces the risk of infection by 86%. This naturally is leading to the clamor that taxpayers be forced to pay for this pill to be given to every active homosexual who wants it.
Key excerpts (emphasis mine throughout):
A daily pill that can dramatically cut a person's risk of contracting HIV must be made available through the NHS "as soon as possible", campaigners have said.
Results of a major UK trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have been described as "extremely exciting" and a "game-changer" by leading specialists.
The Proud study found that PrEP cut the risk of HIV infection among gay men considered to be at high risk by an unprecedented 86 per cent.
Despite major advances in the fight against HIV/Aids in recent decades, the infection rate among men who have sex with men remains stubbornly high in the UK, and the results of the trial have led to calls for PrEP to be offered free by the NHS.
So the Independent admits that HIV/AIDS is a behaviorally induced disease, say like lung cancer is in smokers, but that the solution is not to urge homosexuals to consider a change in their behavior but for British taxpayers to subsidize their non-normative sexual conduct.
And how just expensive would this be?
Truvada costs £361 for 30 pills – one month's provision. On top of that, the cost of providing the drug through clinics costs about £62.50 per month. This gives a full monthly cost of £5,081 per year.
The next question is how many people would be given the pill. It would probably only be available for high-risk people – those who are having sex with several partners, sometimes unprotected. About 18,000 men who have sex with men are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection each year (an indicator of a high-risk lifestyle). If around a quarter of these were deemed likely to benefit from PrEP that would mean 4,500 people taking PrEP a year, at a total cost of £22.8m.
This cost needs to be offset against the lifetime cost to the NHS of treating someone with HIV, which is estimated to be as high as £360,000 per person.
Of course, while initially it would be made available only to "high-risk" people, it will not be long before insistent calls are made, in the interests of public health, that every homosexual be offered the option. After all, homosexual behavior is "high risk" behavior all by itself.
The exchange rate, as of this morning, was one British pound to $1.55 US. So in the UK the lifetime cost of treating the gay disease would be $558,000 in U.S. dollars, and the yearly cost for the Truvada pill for an active homosexual would be $7,875.55.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men represent approximately 2% of the United States population. If the population of the United States is 319 million, this means that up to 6,380,000 males may soon be demanding that the Truvada pill to be made available to them at taxpayer expense to prevent HIV infections.
The potential total exposure to taxpayers for annual prescriptions of Truvada would run, in a worst case scenario, to $50,248,880,000 a year (6.38 million multiplied by $7876). That's $50 billion a year. That's "billion" with a "b."
The gay disease is about to become very, very expensive. And ordinary Americans, even the ones who channel their sexual energy into monogamous marriage and thus reduce their own risk of STDs to practically zero, will be asked to foot the bill.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
February 27, 2015
Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"
The term "gay disease" to refer to HIV/AIDS is not mine. In fact, it comes from the homosexual community itself. Columnist Todd Heywood just a year ago on a pro-gay website headlined his column, "LISTEN: HIV Is Still a Gay Disease." (You can read his piece here.)
Well, the gay disease is just about to get exorbitantly expensive for American taxpayers.
According to the UK newspaper, The Independent, an HIV pill (Truvada) has been developed that reduces the risk of infection by 86%. This naturally is leading to the clamor that taxpayers be forced to pay for this pill to be given to every active homosexual who wants it.
Key excerpts (emphasis mine throughout):
A daily pill that can dramatically cut a person's risk of contracting HIV must be made available through the NHS "as soon as possible", campaigners have said.
Results of a major UK trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have been described as "extremely exciting" and a "game-changer" by leading specialists.
The Proud study found that PrEP cut the risk of HIV infection among gay men considered to be at high risk by an unprecedented 86 per cent.
Despite major advances in the fight against HIV/Aids in recent decades, the infection rate among men who have sex with men remains stubbornly high in the UK, and the results of the trial have led to calls for PrEP to be offered free by the NHS.
So the Independent admits that HIV/AIDS is a behaviorally induced disease, say like lung cancer is in smokers, but that the solution is not to urge homosexuals to consider a change in their behavior but for British taxpayers to subsidize their non-normative sexual conduct.
And how just expensive would this be?
Truvada costs £361 for 30 pills – one month's provision. On top of that, the cost of providing the drug through clinics costs about £62.50 per month. This gives a full monthly cost of £5,081 per year.
The next question is how many people would be given the pill. It would probably only be available for high-risk people – those who are having sex with several partners, sometimes unprotected. About 18,000 men who have sex with men are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection each year (an indicator of a high-risk lifestyle). If around a quarter of these were deemed likely to benefit from PrEP that would mean 4,500 people taking PrEP a year, at a total cost of £22.8m.
This cost needs to be offset against the lifetime cost to the NHS of treating someone with HIV, which is estimated to be as high as £360,000 per person.
Of course, while initially it would be made available only to "high-risk" people, it will not be long before insistent calls are made, in the interests of public health, that every homosexual be offered the option. After all, homosexual behavior is "high risk" behavior all by itself.
The exchange rate, as of this morning, was one British pound to $1.55 US. So in the UK the lifetime cost of treating the gay disease would be $558,000 in U.S. dollars, and the yearly cost for the Truvada pill for an active homosexual would be $7,875.55.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates that gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men represent approximately 2% of the United States population. If the population of the United States is 319 million, this means that up to 6,380,000 males may soon be demanding that the Truvada pill to be made available to them at taxpayer expense to prevent HIV infections.
The potential total exposure to taxpayers for annual prescriptions of Truvada would run, in a worst case scenario, to $50,248,880,000 a year (6.38 million multiplied by $7876). That's $50 billion a year. That's "billion" with a "b."
The gay disease is about to become very, very expensive. And ordinary Americans, even the ones who channel their sexual energy into monogamous marriage and thus reduce their own risk of STDs to practically zero, will be asked to foot the bill.
(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)
© Bryan Fischer
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
