No reliable data on homosexual health?
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Some health experts say there is no 'reliable' data to justify recent claims by religious figures that gay people are likely to die sooner than the general population, and that the health problems that do exist are a result of continuing discrimination. Whereas the Netherlands which is an a very open and tolerant community to homosexuality is still showing health and suicide problems with homosexuals. Why?
Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace and Sydney Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen have both come under fire in recent days for appearing to suggest the "lifestyle" of gay people predisposed them to ill-health.
A range of Australia's gay and lesbian health organisations have lined up to criticise the comments, saying Australia's official census and other health data is not collected in a way that would permit such statements to be made with any confidence. But have chosen to criticize any overseas data.
Warren Talbot, general manager of the National LGBTI Health Alliance, said apart from HIV the only real evidence of a significant health disparity was related to mental health, which was worse, particularly among younger gay people, due to a range of social pressures. On what basis does Talbot make that statement?
"Suicidality amongst gay, lesbian and bisexual people is about three times higher than in the general population, and for transgender Australians is about 14 times higher," Mr Talbot said. The Gay community by highlighting suicide maybe promoting it inadvertently as a solution. However, suicide is a complicated act and cannot be used as a simple argument caused by homophobia. It is not as easy as that. Suicide is complex.
"The critical issue is why are people doing this? If Dr Jensen wants to have a serious discussion about this, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community would welcome that."
Other researchers said contrary to Dr Jensen's claim that a "virulent censorship" was preventing the discussion of lesbian and gay health issues, the real hurdle was the "great reluctance" among many research organisations to include questions about sexuality in their questionnaires, without which it is impossible to see if diseases affect gay people disproportionately.
Andrew Grulich, head of HIV epidemiology and prevention programs at the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW, said a research program called the 45 and Up study had recently agreed to ask about sexuality in a sub-set of 100,000 people who have agreed to have their health status recorded for years to come. The very act of homosexuality where the anus is torn by which the HIV Aids virus is transmtted via a blood or fluid contact is indicative of an unhealthy lifestyle choice. They could choose to be celebate.
"But as only 2 per cent of the population is gay, even that may not be good enough to give us accurate figures on rates of death -- you need to follow a very large group for quite some time," Professor Grulich said.
A range of Australia's gay and lesbian health organisations have lined up to criticise the comments, saying Australia's official census and other health data is not collected in a way that would permit such statements to be made with any confidence. But have chosen to criticize any overseas data.
Warren Talbot, general manager of the National LGBTI Health Alliance, said apart from HIV the only real evidence of a significant health disparity was related to mental health, which was worse, particularly among younger gay people, due to a range of social pressures. On what basis does Talbot make that statement?
"Suicidality amongst gay, lesbian and bisexual people is about three times higher than in the general population, and for transgender Australians is about 14 times higher," Mr Talbot said. The Gay community by highlighting suicide maybe promoting it inadvertently as a solution. However, suicide is a complicated act and cannot be used as a simple argument caused by homophobia. It is not as easy as that. Suicide is complex.
"The critical issue is why are people doing this? If Dr Jensen wants to have a serious discussion about this, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community would welcome that."
Other researchers said contrary to Dr Jensen's claim that a "virulent censorship" was preventing the discussion of lesbian and gay health issues, the real hurdle was the "great reluctance" among many research organisations to include questions about sexuality in their questionnaires, without which it is impossible to see if diseases affect gay people disproportionately.
Andrew Grulich, head of HIV epidemiology and prevention programs at the Kirby Institute at the University of NSW, said a research program called the 45 and Up study had recently agreed to ask about sexuality in a sub-set of 100,000 people who have agreed to have their health status recorded for years to come. The very act of homosexuality where the anus is torn by which the HIV Aids virus is transmtted via a blood or fluid contact is indicative of an unhealthy lifestyle choice. They could choose to be celebate.
"But as only 2 per cent of the population is gay, even that may not be good enough to give us accurate figures on rates of death -- you need to follow a very large group for quite some time," Professor Grulich said.
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- Why I wish the Australian Christian Lobby would remove 'Christian' from its title (lizziethinks.wordpress.com)
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