Creative Commons License« SNE Part 106 | Main | TODAY: Part-time JC 'Lecherer' »
Friday, March 11, 2005
Hypothesis: Aids MAY be spread by gays breathing on you!!!
I propose that the Government ban all gay parties, especially on our National Day. I read that nine out of 10 of the new Aids sufferers in Singapore last year, are men and a third of them are gay. It’s them darn homo parties, I tell you.
Dr Balaji Sadasivan, who won a spot in David Salyer's "Just Shut Up" Awards, did say it was only a hypothesis, and more research needs to be done.
Sure, hypothesis only, but can get mentioned on the front page of ST first.
And what's up with the "unnamed expert"? Why? Scared all the angry homos go and scold this expert, issit? Or worse, go there and breathe on him to give him Aids, issit?
You don't know, meh? Aids MAY be spread by gay people breathing on the rest of us "normal" people. It's so far only a hypothesis by an expert who shall remain unnamed, and more research needs to be done. But I thought I'd mention it first.
Others who also talked about The Great Singapore Hypothesis:
Mr Miyagi (he just looks gay, but he is not a spreader of Aids like the real ones)
Cowboy Caleb
Lancerlord
IZ Reloaded
Singabloodypore
News excerpt from soon-to-be-unquoted-online Straits Times:
Gay parties may have led to sharp rise in new Aids cases
By Leslie Koh
THERE was a sharp rise in new Aids cases last year and it could be linked to a popular annual 'gay party' on Sentosa, Dr Balaji Sadasivan said yesterday, quoting an unnamed expert...
...Nine out of 10 of the new Aids sufferers are men and a third of them are gay. There are more than 2,000 Aids patients in Singapore now.
Dr Balaji said an epidemiologist - an expert in the spread and control of diseases - had suggested to him that the spike might be linked to the Nation parties held every August on Sentosa.
The Nation parties, which attract a predominantly homosexual crowd, could have allowed 'gays from high-prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community', he said.
He added: 'However, this is a hypothesis and more research needs to be done.' - ST, March 10, 2005
Friday, March 11, 2005 at 04:50 AM in Random Rants, Popular | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2139/2014380
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Hypothesis: Aids MAY be spread by gays breathing on you!!!:
» Gays cause the AIDS problem from serialdeviant.org(y)
If anything, politicians in Singapore should learn some of the linguistic tricks their counterparts in Western countries are so adept with. A sharp rise in HIV cases possibly being caused by a gay party, indeed. Good job, Dr Balaji. [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 11, 2005 4:37:01 PM
» Cynics are the new sheep from Better Living Through Buttermilk
There's been a bit of noise about Dr Balaji's Gay Party Hypothesis. I didn't mean to blog about this because it's simply not news—member of Singapore gubmint makes apparently wrongheaded remark about non-traditional problem/issue/community! Semiofficia... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 12, 2005 3:26:02 PM
» Asia by Blog from Simon World
Asia by Blog is a regular feature providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here. **Notes: 1. The new Daily Linklets posts will also contain links to interesting China, Asia an... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 16, 2005 5:32:28 PM
» The logic of “Family Values” and “Nature” from Wannabe Lawyer
On Sunday, Adri’s posts directed me to an article in the Sunday Times about the alleged connection between gay parties in Sentosa and a supposed spike in Aids cases in Singapore.
To be honest, the issue of homosexuals and what they get up to in... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 22, 2005 5:26:46 PM
Comments
*PENGZ*
*Claps hand to forehead*
First the smoking ban, now this. Is there no end to the stupidity proliferating in this country?
Next thing you know, they'll be coming up with a "hypothesis" that lung cancer can be spread by smokers breathing on you too. Oh wait, haven't they already "hypothesised" that?!
Posted by: Sheena | Mar 11, 2005 5:39:54 AM
Shades of mollymeek there mrbrown
Posted by: Anonynonymousy | Mar 11, 2005 6:21:39 AM
We pay the most incredible people incredible amounts of money to say the most incredible things....
Posted by: bubblemunche | Mar 11, 2005 7:16:31 AM
It's disturbing to be the only lone Singaporean sitting in the middle of a dinner table in Hong Kong when the rest (professionals earning similar income as our rich ministers) starts to laugh at some of our policies.
Next, I suggest banning gay guys from travelling overseas. Better, close all our ports.
aww.. just qurrantine the entire poplation of gay guys in Sentosa indefinately.
Also, keep someone's mouth shut so the flies don't go in following the rubbish.
Posted by: d8 | Mar 11, 2005 8:03:04 AM
actually, his sample of patients is somewhat biased, considering that the homosexual community in general would be more aware and more likely to be going for blood tests then the heterosexuals.
Posted by: pun | Mar 11, 2005 8:26:43 AM
'gays from high-prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community'
"fraternise" is a euphemism for something else.
Posted by: brotherly love | Mar 11, 2005 8:38:44 AM
It is badly put, and rather unbelievable, to say that the Nation parties are a cause of a spike in aids, without any firm evidence of this. Even as a hypothesis it looks suspect. Rough figures brought up about how gays are a small portion of new patients seem to bear out this point. It is hence not surprising that people laugh at this article's attempt to demonise the parties and their participants. However, everyone should have expected that the aids scourge is a very convenient way to bash gays and their parties HWAT.
The underlying point may be, "fraternising" does create an eventual entry point for aids. the issue i think is the lack of protection. There are some subsidiary issues on the non-monogamous tendency of gay relationships, and of the greater risk of anal sex (as opposed to vaginal sex). I confess, I am not knowledgable in these issues, so i am mentioning them here and asking to be enlightened by those in the know.
Is the use of "Contraceptives" prevalent amongst the gay community?
On another note, i did think that lung cancer is caused by second hand smoke...
Posted by: ecalos | Mar 11, 2005 9:26:38 AM
The hypothesis isn't even correctly interpreted by the unknown expert.
"Nine out of 10 of the new Aids sufferers are men and a third of them are gay."
This means two thirds are not gay.
So a more reasonable way of interpreting this (if push comes to shove) is:
"Disco/heterosexual parties at Sentosa might be responsible for spike."
But no matter how I see it, it's just very irresponsible research and reporting by the minister and the newspaper.
Posted by: Jeffrey Yen | Mar 11, 2005 9:48:35 AM
added to questionnaire on the immigration card, Are you gay?
Posted by: Ashwin | Mar 11, 2005 10:15:23 AM
Flava@SPF was a volunteer at last year's Nation party to give out safe sex kits...The police came and escorted the condoms out of the party...funny how the Aids spike is blamed on the Nation party isnt it? read her account here
http://sarongpartyfrens.com/archives/2004/08/14/nation/
(self link)
Posted by: jo | Mar 11, 2005 11:03:27 AM
Expert: wasn't it the fantastic duo of abbot and costello ('who's on first?') who said that X is an unknown quantity and Spurt is just a trickle of water under a lot of pressure?
tell you all don't anyhow spray oredie you all never listen.
Posted by: ching | Mar 11, 2005 11:28:21 AM
My take on this is, well, every year these mini-stars have to put out an agenda, say something, and try to do something. Well, my years in Secondary school/JC pretty much said everything about this in MOE. They have this "students must think creatively" thingy and set up creative thinking courses for one year.. which slowly faded away, and one next year they will be proclaiming "entreupreneurship rules" (damn the spelling), and set up all these talks for us to attend. Like entrepreneurship can be taught. Duh. but if they don't scream and fan fare like this, they would be deemed to not be doing anything and well, getting booted by lky. Whats better? wayang or lose your rice bowl?
Posted by: NiHL | Mar 11, 2005 12:24:14 PM
How come the 2/3 of guys having unprotected sex with geylang prostitutes aren't on the front page? Oh, sorry, they are normal and can't get AIDS right. Forgot ah.
First lim hng kiang and his misogynistic breast checkup comments, then mr sadasivan bashing gays...it seems that health ministers contract Foot in Mouth disease once in office.
ecalos, it's an expected way to bash gays...for someone completely ignorant and prejudiced against gays. Not for a trained doctor who's in charge of formulating national health policy.
Posted by: bern | Mar 11, 2005 12:42:38 PM
It's always useful to have scapegoats to divert the attention from you.
"Next thing you know, they'll be coming up with a "hypothesis" that lung cancer can be spread by smokers breathing on you too."
True what. Passive smoking -> lung cancer.
Posted by: Agagooga | Mar 11, 2005 1:21:46 PM
So they can come up with this 'hypothesis' and the NTU lecturers get slammed for their research on PR population in Singapore?
I say slam them back equally hard if they're wrong.
Posted by: LittleWetBaaberGaam | Mar 11, 2005 1:44:15 PM
I remember attending Paddy Chew's funeral with a girlfren. Her then boyfriend got so upset and paranoid when he found out. He believes the govt is going to blacklist us. Wah lau.
Posted by: bohemianphilosophy | Mar 11, 2005 1:54:21 PM
went to the Hardcore gig last month, co sponsored by Action for Aids. they were giving out condoms at the door. so cute. cant imagine any of the moshers gettin in on tho
hootie
Posted by: hootie | Mar 11, 2005 3:03:11 PM
Another first-class idiot of someone who is supposedly in a technical field.
As every statistics/social science student knows,
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION
repeated about infinity times until even thick skulls will remember it for life
Posted by: AcidFlask | Mar 11, 2005 3:09:40 PM
*facepalms*
Posted by: Hai~Ren | Mar 11, 2005 5:06:59 PM
just 2 questions:
9 out of 10 new AIDS sufferers are men, 1/3 of them are gay. that means 3 out of 10 new AIDS sufferers are gay men. but how many new cases are there? anyone who takes statistics would know you need a large sample size to make a point. what if there were only 10 new cases last year? all they said was that there were "more than 2000"...
allowed 'gays from high-prevalence societies to fraternise with local gay men, seeding the infection in the local community'. Ahh, so now he's hypothesising that the disease originated from gays overseas, and couldn't possibly have come from within the country. Nah, Singaporeans wouldn't sabo their fellow men, would they?
by the way, I found this while googling:
http://www.yawningbread.org/apdx_2004/imp-161.htm
'We are severely lacking in research to find out the sexual behaviour of local residents. Although we may have small surveys here and there, and some of them are more commercially targeted, the last survey that we can quote on national sexual behavioural patterns was done in 1989 by epidemiologist Dr Heng Bee Hoon,' said Dr Leo.
this article is 4 months old old, and the epidemiologist's research was done in 1989, but I feel this is sufficient to hypothesise that this very same epidemiologist was quoted by Dr Balaji. I don't blame him though - he might have been quoted unsuspectedly. But I'd still advise he go into hiding for a while, now that he's been semi-browned.
Posted by: kureshii | Mar 11, 2005 6:11:57 PM
your singabloodypore link is broken.
Posted by: loupgarou | Mar 11, 2005 6:24:58 PM
LittleWetBaaberGaam,
dun think the ntu lecturers were even wrong.
they just didn't think that PR == singaporeans!
Posted by: yh | Mar 11, 2005 9:41:39 PM
So much for sanity it seems. Come on, in basic statistics lectures I got in poly, there are certain requirements to be set before we even start to hypothsize anything. And when it comes to genetics in uni, it becomes even worse with lots of factors. For that grand proclamation to even make sense, at least come up with some suitable data and numbers (like specific percentages? Oh wait, it was a hypothesis... I see...) Its silly and unfair for this community (or rather, MY community) to be shoved into this tight spot, whilst that unnamed epidemiologist hides behind the word 'MAYBE'.
Makes it worthwhile not to subscribe or even buy the Straits Times anymore. I'll get a clearer perspective of reality from avoiding such irresponsible newspapers.
Posted by: Vitrichenko | Mar 11, 2005 10:42:15 PM
Although I do not really agree with these parties but I think that this time Dr Balaji is not being fair in his remarks, especially when He himself cannot really be sure either. To Dr Balaji, if you are reading this, please understand that even if you do not endorse such an lifestyle, please show some sensitivity in your remarks you made as they will be reflected in the national media.
Posted by: choppedradish | Mar 11, 2005 11:23:05 PM
An unjustified justification for a ban on gay marriages in Spore??
Posted by: anna | Mar 12, 2005 12:15:37 AM
"unjustified justification"? i am completely lost here.
sensitivity in his remarks even if he does not endorse such a "lifestyle"? *ahem* you're talking about criminal offences punishable with significant jail terms... although granted that enforcement is patchy at best.
it's a simple point. demonise, stir up the masses who will huddle together, tsk and point fingers, and have their patriotic feelings of indignation aroused. Of course we can criticise the execution as being illogical, but since when does it have to be, as long as it works on the masses? correlation or causation, technical mumbo-jumbo or nonsense, the cat that catches the mouse, is a good cat.
Posted by: ecalos | Mar 12, 2005 2:01:50 AM
No. I am against the government's decision. Why? Well....if there's less gays, it would mean that there would be more heterosexual guys. And the increase in heterosexual guys would mean that nice, decent guys (like me) will have to compete for girls' attention against those (recently turned) hetero guys. Gay parties are a good way for gays to meet. Let them stay gay. Let us guys have a chance(at having girlfriends I mean).
Posted by: suspiciousbastard | Mar 12, 2005 3:32:06 AM
choppedradish, dr balaji evidently meant for these comments to be reflected in the media. Nothing to do with sensitivity. And then ST guai guai publish.
It's very ironic though, balaji says he wants to promote "destigmatisation of AIDS" but is doing the opposite. I don't believe he thinks he'll lose his job if he doesn't make a fanfare, quite the opposite, if he goes about it correctly he will have lowered AIDS numbers to trumpet instead. My view is he's personally ignorant and thinks scare tactics work.
Or like ecalos says, maybe he's really bochup about real results and is knowingly wayanging? At the costs of straight and gay lives? Then we're paying millions of dollars to murderers.
Posted by: bern | Mar 12, 2005 5:55:45 AM
um.
isn't the whole "gayism as a vector for vile and god-given disease" a first-generation hypothesis that got junked early in the evolution of AIDS, the world over - after the REAL epidemioligists (ie not the government service flunkies) did proper, well referenced research with large sample sizes and adequate outcome measures... and realised that it was actually straight men doing most of the spreading?
Straights Times. You gotta love em.
Posted by: re-minisce. | Mar 12, 2005 7:15:13 AM
This is so stupid. I'm speechless.
Posted by: wanni | Mar 12, 2005 11:15:45 AM
Oi, siao eh, you all stop condemning Dr Balaji can? I think he is damn brilliant ok. All you who always kao peh that Singapore got no freedom of speech/press, learn from the grandmaster! "Hah? You want to sue me for defamation and slander? But I oreddy say it is an unnamed espert's hypothesis and more research needs to be done whaat..."
Posted by: moi | Mar 12, 2005 3:02:06 PM
fucking straits times and newpaper are sensationalising the "aids epidemic" as a gay party problem.. WHAT FAGS they are..
[quote]
Sadly, the total number of new cases for 2004 was 311. In 2003, the number of new cases was 242. This means there was a year-on-year increase of 28%. Currently 90% of these newly diagnosed patients are males, with 1/3 being gays. We had a low prevalence rate of HIV in the past, even in the gay community. We do not know the reasons for the sharp increase of HIV in the gay community.[/quote]
apparently, the number of hetrosexual males detected with hiv in 2004 was
311-242 * 2/3 * 0.9 = 93..
apparently 93 more hetrosexual males were detected with hiv, as compared to 20 more homosexual males. OMG! hetrosexuality causes aids!
Posted by: loupgarou | Mar 13, 2005 2:17:45 PM
That's not the route to refutation. What's the ratio of homosexual to heterosexual males in the general population?
Posted by: Nicholas Liu | Mar 13, 2005 5:44:05 PM
err... the Dr does make the strong point that ignorance can be a more incurable disease than AIDS, SARS.
Posted by: errr... | Mar 14, 2005 7:18:40 AM
hmm....i tink this is the blardy press's fault...the newpaper sucks...they always like to blow things out of proportion and sensationalise their stuff so as too boost sales. It mite not have been that bad....we are looking at things from their perspective and it mite really be their interpretion instead...
Posted by: marv | Mar 14, 2005 8:57:29 AM
hey, suspiciousbastard. Don't worry about not being able to find yourself a gf or wive. Last weekend, a family carnival organised by Shin Min Daily News featured Vietnamese "ready brides", clad in jeans and tank tops, in a "fish tank." I guess mothers can help their 10-year sons choose a bride? What are the organisers thinking?!
Posted by: circa | Mar 14, 2005 12:37:48 PM
New Entry to Singlish Canon:
Balaji [baa-laa-jee]
1. verb. to talk nonsense or make ridiculous statements.
e.g. "Huh??? SMRT promises better service and lower prices next year? Don't balaji lah!!!"
2. adj. unreliable, irresponsible, dubious
e.g. "Better don't visit that doctor!! He's quite balaji one!"
(from http://www.livejournal.com/community/sg_ljers/763176.html)
Posted by: Yuhui | Mar 15, 2005 10:58:23 AM
