I haven’t really been in the mood to fuck the last few days (sorta am, but sorta not), plus my dog ate the pills I use to help my dick get nice and hard and thick, so… You get something that’s not exactly a hookup story…

After my post the other day comparing smoking and HIV as problems for the gay community, I did a little more research. These numbers are as accurate as I can get them, but not perfect… They’re a lot more accurate than the numbers in my last post.

For starters, 276,000 men die from smoking related causes each year. Pile on top of that that 41.6% of gay men smoke compared to 28.6% of the general population and we’re 1.45 times more likely to smoke. So, the leap I’m taking is saying that if we’re 1.45 more likely to smoke we’re 1.45 times more likely to die of smoking related causes. So our 10% of the male population would actually be more like 14.5% of the smoking deaths.

Now, on top of that smoking accelerates the start of AIDS among people with HIV, and HIV accelerates smoking-induced emphysema, and you see the 14.5% is actually a bit low. So let’s be conservative and say 15% of male smoking deaths are gay men. That means over 41,000 gay men die of smoking related causes each year in the United States.

Taking a look at HIV… The CDC says 12,543 people died of HIV related causes in 2005 (that number is somewhat lower than the people with AIDS who die since people with AIDS can die of many other causes as well). The CDC also sas 73% of the deaths were in men. That means just over 9,000 men died of HIV, and not all of those are gay men. If we said 80% of those deaths were gay men (a guess), and rounded up (not in our favor), then about 7,500 gay men die of HIV each year.

Again, those numbers are rough estimates, but I believe I’m making assumptions that work against the point I’m trying to make, not in favor…

So when I say gay men are 5 times more likely to die of smoking related causes than HIV related cause, I think it’s actually higher than that…

Now why isn’t there the outrage and intensity of feelings about smoking that we see about HIV and barebacking?

UPDATE:

Four years after I figured out that smoking was more deadly than HIV, researchers have come to the same conclusion:

The study demonstrates the very potent hazards of smoking and also confirms that patients with well-controlled HIV are able to have longer, healthier lives than HIV patients who smoke.

In fact…

…the study found that 60% of the deaths among HIV patients was associated with smoking.