Commentator Paddy O Gorman has enraged both the gay community and the medical establishment with his assertion that AIDS is an exclusively homo-sexually transmitted virus. He believes that heterosexuals who indulge in unprotected sex are at no risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.
O Gorman is a broadcaster and journalist, working mainly for RTE radio and television, and contributing a weekly column to the Evening Herald. His documentary series, including Queuing For a Living and O Gorman s People, have been widely acclaimed.
In November of last year, O Gorman guested on The Gerry Ryan Show on RTE 2FM, the subject of which was World Aids Day, an event designed to increase awareness of HIV and AIDS issues. In the course of the broadcast, O Gorman claimed that AIDS was not a heterosexual disease, and that barring intravenous drug users and heterosexuals who had contracted the virus through blood product transfusions, the disease was exclusively the province of gay men.
In his Evening Herald column of Wednesday January 13, he included a piece entitled Why Aids Is A Gay Virus , in which he maintained this position, questioning why, despite a reported rise in other sexually transmitted diseases, there was no apparent increase in heterosexual AIDS cases.
Following this article the Evening Herald received several letters of complaint, and responded by publishing an article by Kerry McCarthy in which O Gorman s claims were countered by Dr. Derek Freedman, a leading genito-urinary specialist, who stated that he has personally treated a heterosexual man who had contracted the HIV virus through a single act of intercourse with a woman. In the same piece, Noel Walsh of the Gay Men s Health Network asserted that O Gorman s pronouncements were total misinformation . At the time of writing, the Evening Herald is still publishing readers letters complaining about the journalist s theories. In the lesbian and gay press, O Gorman has been criticised by Gay Community News media commentator Deborah Ballard and In Dublin magazine s Queer contributor, Brian Finnegan. For his part, O Gorman stands over his remarks.
I ve been voicing a dissident position on AIDS for some months, he tells Hot Press, and I believe I have shown that the HIV test itself is unreliable, that the assumptions on HIV in Africa are really very, very silly, and that the figures for heterosexual AIDS in Ireland are totally fraudulent. AIDS is not an equal opportunities infection, it is overwhelmingly, almost exclusively in fact, a disease that s transmitted between men. The most common form of sexual transfer of this virus is through unprotected receptive anal sex, therefore gay men are more at risk by nature of their sexual activity.
But it is not only gay men who indulge in anal intercourse, and statistics worldwide indicate that the fastest rate of increase in HIV infection is among young heterosexuals.
As a broadcaster, I ve spent years putting the human stories on such statistics, and I have discovered no evidence whatever to support these figures. The anecdotal evidence doesn t exist. Where are these heterosexuals with sexually-contracted HIV? I haven t met one. For example, in 1996 a government task force on drugs produced it s report on heroin in Cork I knew it was a total hoax. I know Cork, I know Cork s drug problems and I know there is zero heroin in Cork. Again with heterosexual sexually transmitted AIDS cases, I can t find them.
But one s HIV status is not the kind of subject that one might be publicly vocal about.
If gay men are talking about it, if heroin users are talking about it, if haemophiliacs are talking about it, why are heterosexual people shutting up? Research in Ireland has shown that non i/v drug-using prostitutes are not contracting the AIDS virus, although many are infected with other sexually transmitted illnesses. To me, this indicates that AIDS is not a risk in heterosexual intercourse. Recent figures indicate that of the new cases of supposed heterosexual HIV cases, seventeen were men and six were women. Given the way that the disease is transmitted, this would indicate that either the men are lying about their sexual orientation, or that there s something wierdly lethal about the Irish vagina. This is hoax and fraud.
Noel Walsh of the Gay Health Network vehemently disagrees with O Gorman s assertions. His position is dangerous and divisive,: he insists. I personally know of at least one woman in Dublin who contracted the virus through heterosexual intercourse, and at a recent conference in Poland I met many women who had been thus infected, and one man who had contracted HIV through a single act of intercourse with a Central American prostitute.
The HIV/Aids test is extremely reliable, he continues. I believe it s foolproof. In fact, two tests are usually administered, the Western Blot test, and the Elisa test. These separate tests only result in a positive result if the HIV virus is present no other virus or substance in the blood will register as positive with these tests. The figures available to the public, from agencies like the Dublin AIDS Alliance and others, prove a rise in heterosexual HIV infection, and in fact the number of gay men testing positive has significantly decreased in recent years. Whatever O Gorman s agenda is, to suggest that young people who practise unsafe sex are not at risk of HIV infection is criminally irresponsible.
Current medical thinking holds that other STDs like gonorrhoea and syphilis are more easily transmitted than the HIV virus, and, due largely to the AIDS scare, almost all non-HIV infected prostitutes will insist on condom use for penetrative sex. It is also a sobering fact that most heterosexuals, believing themselves to be at less risk than other groups, have never had a HIV test.
If O Gorman is right, why does he think that so much official, medical and government research contradicts his position? If we are being sold a lie, why and by whom?
This has become a cultural and social issue rather than a public health issue, he says. Noel Walsh of Gay Community News, and Dr.John Wiliams of the Gay Poz group have attacked me in the Evening Herald, accusing me of being callous it is they who are being callous. GCN is wedded to Gay Poz Ireland, and I suspect that it s also financed by Glaxo, the drug company they re wedded to this AZT stuff, and the notion that gay men are no more at risk than heterosexuals. The Darwinist in me says that the vagina has evolved over millions of years to facilitate impregnation and to resist infection, the rectum hasn t evolved for that purpose. That s not homophobic, it s common sense. In fact, at this stage I m not even certain that HIV is the cause of AIDS.
Contacted by Hot Press, Gay Community News editor Michael Cronin denies that the newspaper is connected to any other group.
While we have had members of Gay Poz Ireland contributing to the paper on an irregular basis, he states, we are a totally independent publication. The only connection we have with Gay Poz is a shared undertaking to increase education and awareness of HIV/AIDS issues, but we are not wedded to any other group. To suggest that we are funded by Glaxo is laughable. We are funded by Fas and by our advertisers, and to my knowledge, we have never even carried an ad for a pharmeceutical company.
O Gorman has clearly researched this issue, quoting liberally from medical findings and internet sites. However, he admits he has no medical training, and even for experts the vast amount of research on HIV/Aids issues is staggering in both complexity and volume. As with the Bible, it is possible to find evidence to support any view, however outlandish. He denies any element of homophobia in his pronouncements.