In a recent thread a post stated, “Do you remember the coverage (whether true or not?) not quite two years ago a roundup of TJ escorts that showed 80% of them were HIV positive.”  This post came from somebody who I normally find well informed and insightful.  Others posted similar opinions, usually making even less of an attempt to support their assertions with facts.  However, following a quick review of information available on the `net, I find nothing to support the above statement and similar statements.  I did, however, find much to disprove them. It appears hobbying in Mexico is safer from both a LE and public health viewpoint.  For the record:

UNICIF estimates there are 150,000 people living with HIV in Mexico, 86% of which are men.  Mexico, with a population of over 100 million, has approximately half the population of the United States.  Compare 150,000 people in Mexico to the estimated 900,000 people in the United States living with HIV/AIDS. (Again, over 80% those with HIV/AIDS in the US are men.) These figures seem to indicate the HIV/AIDS infection rate is three times greater in the United States than in Mexico.
Link: http://www.thebody.com/cdc/news_updates_archive/2003/aug20_03/mexico_street_children.html
Link:  http://www.aidsaction.org/communications/publications/statefactsheets/pdfs/usa_2003.pdf
Link:  http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html

The San Diego HIV Funding Collaborative estimates there are 14,000 people living with HIV and AIDS in the San Diego-Tijuana region.  If you read closely you will see that 11,000 are in San Diego and 3,000 in Tijuana.  (Tijuana, like San Diego, has a population of over one million people.)
Link:  http://www.aidsfund.org/naf/partners/partnersDisplay.cfm?PartnerID=9

Less than two years ago the Center for Disease Control (CDC) released information stating that among young gay and bi-sexual Latino men in the San Diego-Tijuana border region the infection rate among young bi-sexual Latinos is 35.2% in San Diego and 18.9% in Tijuana.  (As I assume everyone knows, in both counties this is a demographic group that is infected far above the rate of the general population.)
Link:  http://www.thebody.com/cdc/news_updates_archive/apr10_02/us_mexico_aids.html
Link:  http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20020223-9999_7m23aids.html

Where did the 80% figure come from?  I don’t know—-I find nothing supporting such a statement.  However, the above report on Bi-Sexual Latinos did receive a lot of press coverage from February through April 2002.  I wonder if the poster heard 18% thinking the television report said 80% and also somehow mistakenly thought it applied to Tijuana street workers instead of bi-sexual men. Anyway, that is my best guess for the origin of the hearsay statement that 80% of the street workers in TJ have AIDS.

Lencho stated, “You are much more likely to "get something" from a US side provider than one from Mexico.”  He was challenged to support that claim.  

In support of that view I offer the following from a comparative study between female sex workers (FSWs) in San Bernardino and Mexico.  David James Bellis, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Public Administration at California State University, San Bernardino states in his paper:

"Although both the Americans and Mexicans were afraid of AIDS, unlike the former who rarely were tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the Mexican FSWs, who were not IDUs, knew less about HIV transmission.  Under their legalized prostitution system, and because they usually used condoms, fear of AIDS and other STDs is not a burning concern south of the border.

Significant differences exist between the two groups in risk exposure to HIV and other STDs because of the legal basis, sociology and economics of street work.  Mexican FSWs, for whom prostitution is a means of livelihood, are choir girls compared with their American counterparts north of the border who do sex work for drug money and are at greater risk for acquiring STDs."
Link:  http://www.ipsonet.org/congress/5/papers_pdf/djb.pdf

Please remember that it is Dr. Bellis, not I, that says Mexican providers are choir girls compared to US providers.  He does, however, have hard data indicating the risk of exposure to AIDS and STDs is substantially less visiting Mexican providers than American providers.  Also his data shows that the use of condoms is far greater among Mexican providers than US providers.

I’m Anglo.  I once lived in Latin American, and have visited many countries there.  I will be the first to agree that Latin America has many problems; however, IMHO so does the United States.  Neither region or culture is utopian—-each has a different set of problems.  However, I grow weary of the attitudes and opinions I so frequently hear in the United States that are based on stereotypes and misinformation.  One of those is that you are at greater risk seeing a Mexican sex worker than an American sex worker.  Data from respected organizations and researchers, like the CDC, UNICIF, and Dr. Bellis, contradict such a view.  Such views, however, help explain why so many people in Latin America consider North Americans to be arrogant and imperialistic.

Finally, the danger of contracting HIV/AIDS from a provider (in any country) is much less than most people think--unless the provider is an intravenous drug user (IDU). This, of course, is because HIV/AIDS is far more frequently contacted through contact with contaminated blood than seaman--hence by far the greatest risk of exposure is among those that share needles. (It is worth noting, however, that Dr. Bellis found intravenous drug use is far more common among providers in the United States than in Mexico.)
Link to:  http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/data/rrbprostitute.htm

If you don’t want to go to Tijuana that is your right.  I, for one, would really appreciate it if those who post would refrain from making disparaging remarks about Mexican providers and the hobbyists that visit them that are based on hearsay and stereotypical thinking instead of facts.



-- Modified on 12/13/2003 12:32:49 PM

Thanks for all that.

I did sit and watch the news episode that I mentioned in my earlier post. So, I was watching it. What station? Dunno.  What time frame? Two years.
That's all I can report.

Good stuff.

Sedona, you know the strange thing is that you have made so many well-reasoned and insightful posts I believe that is actually what you heard on TV.  (Because the statement came from you, I started wondering if things had changed since the last time I looked into this issue.  I’m glad it hasn’t.) I can find nothing to support the broadcast you heard-—I haven’t a clue where they got the information.  Frankly, I doubt any group, anywhere (with the possible exception of somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa) has an 80% infection rate.  To the best of my knowledge not even gay and bi-sexual male intravenous drug users have an 80% infection rate, and I think that group has the highest infection rate of all. Anyway, as the information I posted indicates, apparently the risk of HIV/AIDS and STD exposure is less in Mexico than in the United States.  

On a personal note, thank-you.  It is such a welcome change to find somebody who disagrees with you without becoming disagreeable.  You’re a class act.  (I trust you know that my post was not directed at you in particular; others said similar things with less substantiation.  I was trying to respond to what I felt was widely held view based on misinformation.)

Bravo! Burt for taking the time to truly research this issue, like you I have spent many years living and working in:  Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala and I'm constantly amazed at the negative and racist attitudes many white Americans have towards Latino/Hispanic peoples.  The recent sad posing by many politicians on the "driver's license" issue is a good example.  When a friend (white) of mine whined about, "why should they be able to get a driver's license when they are here without papers," my intant response was, "so that 'they' can more easily get to the fields and plant and tend and harvest the fucking food you eat!"

We Anglos are perceived as hard, cold and money grubbing people who put our old folks in homes, kick our kids out of the house when they turn 18, have neither respect nor awe for the mystery of God/Universe but, rather, blindly worship science/technology and consumerism, avidly attack and slaughter people of color - Mexico 1846, Cuba/Phillipines 1898, Korea and Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

Think of this:  no Mexican child has to read a history book that tells of being the only nation in the history of the world to unleash nuclear weapons (Hiroshima/Nagasaki)upon tens of thousands of men, women and children.

Wake up white America and look in the mirror.
Lencho

You are painting Americans (are you even a citizen?) with such a broad brush and speaking in such generalities that you make no sense at all. Yes, of course racism exists in our country, just as it does all over the world, which you should know given your self touting worldly ways. But not everyone has the views you want to project. The issue is not with an illegal alien having some sort of a driving "permit", the problems are the peripheral issues that go along with having a full CDL-security, voting rights, potential fraud, etc. It's not nearly as simple as a racism issue as you state.

The rest of your comments are so asinine that they're not even worth the time of writing a response. But if you're so ashamed of the history of the US and think that the Latin American countries are better, go back and live there. They've done such a good job with poverty levels, corruption, education, health care, etc. that you should love it.

Why do you think it is that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people risk their lives to come to this country to work in our fields, homes, etc.? Because it's infinitely better than what they have in their own third world countries.

Get a clue and try to see what's behind the issues before you spew your ignorant ideas for all to see.

Talk about "Knowledge is King"!

This information is good for everyone to know, and I applaud the writer for taking the time to compile and list all of it for our education.  Thanks, Burt...you get the TER Good Citizen award for the week!

Let me add my thanks, Burt, for researching this topic. I am not surprised by what you found. I think "the powers that be" in and around the prostitution business in TJ have a genuine interest in barring infected ladies from working. If in fact the infection rate was high, it would cost those people a lot of money (bars, strip clubs, massage parlors, restaurants). The health card system in TJ may not be perfect, but I suspect it does insure that it is about as safe a playground as can be found in this part of the world.

Without a doubt, you are a class act.

I have never met you but have watched your posts and comments for some time now and have a lot of respect for you.

You seem to have an open mind about life and are able to disagree without resenting the other persons perspective.

Usually in life one finds that our misconceptions are based on the lack of facts or experience.

*****So I have a offer for you Sedona******

How about if I take you and Dana (formely from Vancouver) to TJ  one afternoon for lunch at a very nice restaurant?  I promise the food will not give you Montezuma's revenge.  

Afterwards, we can do a little holiday shopping, and I can show you TJ from my perspective, and then bring you back across, safe and sound.  

At the very least, Dana, you, and I would have a chance to get to know each other a little better.  And on the flip side, who knows what it might lead to.......(smiling).

How can you say anything but "yes"?

I would like to respond to your above diatribe against science and technology, as well as the role of science in the U.S., in the context of the over-arching topic of HIV/AIDS.

Without the science and technology that you deride, we would have no clinical diagnostic tools to assess the AIDS epidemic. Without the disciplines of cell biology, microbiology, immunology, protein structural analysis, etc., we would have no knowledge of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, nor would we have any effective therapies. Although one can extoll the "contemplative" societies that focus on the mysteries of God/Universe, it is western civilization's greatest achievement, science, that gives us a fighting chance to bring this virus to heel.

And it should also be noted that the U.S. has played a preeminent role in AIDS research. Although HIV was discovered by French scientists at the Pasteur Institute, the bulk of AIDS therapies have been developed in the U.S. Your tax dollars at work.

is simply this: we can do better.

To be better human beings - accepting of others, open to perspectives. So many areas to improve upon, beginning with ourselves.

Neither Lencho or Gordo is right, nor wrong - but remind us that we could be better.

If there is any race of people that have done things for humanity, it IT AINT mexcans. vietnamese, indians or whatever else it is you say.

Name a single human advancement - IN ANY FIELD, from science to spiritual endevours  - that mexco has contributed to... and please, do NOT say the taco!

You are an anti-caucasian, and I do not believe you are white.

MODERATOR: LEAVE THIS MESSAGE INTACT. IT IS NOT OFFENSIVE AS HIS SICK POSTING THAT YOU ALLOWED!!!!!

AIDS is grossly overrated because Hollywood people were afraid (they were among the first victims) and they have the promotional resources to make the headlines.

The diseases you find in mexco are the annoying virul infections.... hepatitis, parasites, ring worms, and herpes... these diseases are EXTREMELY rampant in ALL of mexco (and many third world countries as well as eastern europe.).

AIDS is a "pandemic", which is defined as a global epidemic. It is not simply limited to Africa, although levels of HIV-infected individuals are indeed highest in the sub-saharan countries.

A good, current overview of the AIDS "pandemic" is provided by Dr. Thomas Quinn of The Johns Hopkins University, which I believe is located in Baltimore, rather distant from Hollywood:

http://www.hopkins-aids.edu/publications/report/sept02_5.html

Okay Ness. Here are three examples. You might argue that these achievements never made the the scientific journals. But this is because the journals were kept in Eupope at the time and the Spanish conquistidors destroyed the culture of the people of Mexico and South America.

Just because you are an American, doesn't mean you are always right. And I am white.

The Maya were calculating the movement patterns of stars 1,000 years before Galileo in Europe. State-supported astronomical observatories dotted Mexico (from Monte Alban to Chichen Itza and more), analyzing and observing celestial movements while in Europe, Galileo was being persecuted for advancing astronomical knowledge that was contrary to the motives of the Catholic Church.



The Maya invention of the concept of "zero" two centuries before the Hindus did it and centuries before Europeans got the idea. (Read the book Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife from Penguin USA Publishers). The concept of zero allowed to Maya to calculate vast numbers into the billions by creating a positional numbering system (in base 20's as opposed to base 10's by the Babylonians).

The Aztecs were the first people in the world to start mandatory schooling for all children (in the Telpochcalli and Calmecac), regardless of rank or station (Daily Life of the Aztecs, Jaques Soustelle, Stanford University Press). This is something British and Americans didn't do until the 20th century.

Ah . . Gordo, so it is the old "love it or leave it," admonition from you.  And, yes, I am a citizen, born in San Diego, served four years in US Army, two years in United States Peace Corps, eight years teaching history, economics and American Government in our public high schools, etc., etc.  What, pray tell, have you ever done for your country?
The long road we've trod from our founding as a "Slaveocracy," - John Q. Adams' description of America - to our current pose as "savior" of the world through employment of our "Hessian" style military has brought us to a time where almost each and every day some of our young men and women are in harms way so very far from home.  All wars end at a conference table, no?  Why not skip the war and blood shed and just start at the conference table?  Peace.  Lencho.

Lencho reminds me of a sad white man, wrongfully ashamed of his people. Willing to fight for the dark wave and slander his own.
This is all to prevelant today.
I suppose we should surrender our homes and cars for these precious invaders. After all how could we eat and survive without them??
Remember they are leaving a country full of corruption and poverty caused by greed and over population. it was their people that caused this. What makes you so sure that by the dark masses (not just Mexicans) seeking refuge in this country will; A, not turn it into a 3rd world cesspool like the one their leaving, and B, actually care for the whites who are becoming a minority in their country. We are a minority in the world population.
Anti white behavior is on the rise. Look at the slaughtering in South Africa, that is if your lucky enough to find a TV STation that will cover it. (i have to urn to the internet to see the horror being inflicted on my people) Plus look within this country. There is every bit as much anti white behavior (if not more) than anti colored people.
It is so sad that people are ashamed of their white heritage. That they are so eager to give up the last white homelands, so eager to forfiet thousands of generations of their beautiful lineage and genes to mate with people of color. Our white women our failing us. They are falling for the propaganda that we are horrible,and that they should be dating anyone but a white man. That you will be hip with a black guy, that you will be the center of attention for being with a handsome Puerto Rican man that can dance well.
We are living in interusting times...

and get yourself the therapy you evidently need. You have yet to post one intellegent post on these discussion boards without trying to insult, ridicule and mock others here.

You seem to get a perverse pleasure from posting your sick, twisted and warped view of reality. However, your myopic, racist, sexist, ethnocentric viewpoint is just pathetic, sad & tiring. PLEASE, JUST GO AWAY!!

-- Modified on 12/15/2003 9:02:15 AM

-- Modified on 12/15/2003 9:02:52 AM

First off, I don't know where you get your ideas. I have known very few people that think of Latin people in the way that you describe. It might be best for you to be specific as to who thinks this way. Just because you think a certains, or think that  others think a certain way, that does not make it so. Yes, I'm a San Diego native, millitary, blah, blah,etc.
   I remember when I was a little kid, I would hear the older kids tell ethnic jokes, but I was to young to understand them.The older I got the less I heard them. Just my 2 cents.

I haven't read the other replies, but I wanted to make this response:

1.  The reports you cite were done nearly 3 years ago.  Lots has changed since then.

2.  None of these reports specify who carries the disease, specifically, in tijuana.  Therefore none of the information you've shown seems to disprove the theory that 80% of the girls in, for example, adelitas DONT have hiv.  I agree its a ridiculously high assumption for the guy to make, and is probably wrong... but...

3,000 people in TJ have HIV.  Adelitas holds maybe 50 or so girls at any given time.  Why is it impossible that 46 girls in a city with 3,000 infected people might also be infected? especially in a sex house where each girl literally has sex with 10 guys a day, every single day, every single week?  That's what... 3,360 men a year?

Still, be aware, the reports plainly say that back in 2001, one out of every 150 people you meet has HIV in san diego.  So to me that's enough to worry at least a little bit.

Especially when according to the stats, that means at least 2 people in every single club you go to on a saturday night could have HIV.  Its the luck of the draw as to who it may be and if you go home with them.

True its not an epidemic like in Africa where over 50% of the female population has AIDS, but I wouldn't act like we've got nothing to worry about.

And that 1 in 150 was as of the report date .. 2001.  No doubt it is higher now as more people are living with HIV than ever before (versus dying from it).

I would have thought SD to have a MUCH higher rate of AIDS than the national average, given the very high gay population in this town.

In fact, I understand that SD is either 3rd or 4th in the nation with the highest number of gays (after SF, NYC, and LA); but I am not sure if the report I read referred to percentages or absolute numbers.

Every time I roam the downtown SD area (gaslamp, little italy, mission hills, old town, of course hillcrest) I notice a very high percentage of gays - outside of hillcrest, they are somewhat discreet, but noticeable nonetheless.

I also have a colleague whose wife works at a doctors office, with many 'celebrity' gays, who are indeed AIDS pos... I am surprised it is only 1 of 150 in SD.

Man, thanks...I kept wondering why there was such a high percentage of guys in San Diego with these signs on their foreheads.  I sure am glad I have guys like you around so I can hear what it means.  It sure was "noticeable"...and in Hillcrest, almost ALL the guys had these signs on their foreheads.  Dopey me...and here I just thought it meant "happy".

Sadona and I exchanged PMs.  After reading what she said this it what I think happened.  It started with a “teaser” about staying tuned after the commercial.  The report went on the say that in a recent arrest of Tijuana street workers 80% tested positive for AIDS.  It then cut to interviews in which somebody said these girls could pay a bribe, get a health permit, and be back on the street in no time at all.  The result is the user is left with the impression that 80% of the sex workers in Tijuana are infected.

This was hardly a random sample or a sample size large enough to be meaningful spastically.  Let us look at things in more detail.  Why were the girls arrested?   How many girls were arrested?  

Why were the girls arrested.  Prostitution is legal in Mexico.   Were they, as I suspect, arrested because they were working the streets without a health certificate.  

How many girls were arrested?  If five girls were arrested and four tested positive you get an 80% infection rate.  However, if the police were out to arrest girls denied a health permit because they were known to have tested positive you’d expect a very high infection rate as that was the group being targeted.

Now about the girls being able to pay bribes to get a health certificate.  Remember, that got into the broadcast during a “ reaction of the man on the street” interview.  No facts—just one man’s opinion.  But because it was on television everybody thinks it is true.

If it is some easy for the girls to pay bribes and get a health certificate then why didn’t the pay off the police so they weren’t arrested in the first place?  Obviously because—contrary to the opinion expressed in the broadcast—it is easier said than done.

The best information available is still that condom use is greater among Mexican providers than US provider while intravenous drug use is less among Mexican providers than US providers.  To again quote part of the study from Dr. Bellis at California State University, San Bernardino:
"Although both the Americans and Mexicans were afraid of AIDS, unlike the former who rarely were tested for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), the Mexican FSWs, who were not IDUs, knew less about HIV transmission.  Under their legalized prostitution system, and because they usually used condoms, fear of AIDS and other STDs is not a burning concern south of the border.

Significant differences exist between the two groups in risk exposure to HIV and other STDs because of the legal basis, sociology and economics of street work.  Mexican FSWs, for whom prostitution is a means of livelihood, are choir girls compared with their American counterparts north of the border who do sex work for drug money and are at greater risk for acquiring STDs.  
Link:  http://www.ipsonet.org/congress/5/papers_pdf/djb.pdf

There is hard data supporting the viewpoint that visiting Mexican providers is safer than visiting an American provider.  Is there any hard data to the contrary—or is a popular opinion all that is needed to support the opposing viewpoint.  

After reading the reaction of some people to hard data and scientific studies, I think I undersand why there are people who still believe the earth is flat and that the sun revolves around the earth.  

The 2/11/2004 San Diego Union Tribune on page B4 printed an article entitled “High HIV infection rate found at Tijuana hospital.”  Frankly, I think the title is inaccurate and misleading.  I’ve seldom heard 1.2% considered to be high rate of anything.  Africa has an HIV rate of 30% to 40%.  That to me is high.

In the study 981 women in labor at the Tijuana General Hospital who did not know they were HIV positive were asked for consent to be tested for HIV.  947 women, 96.7% of those asked, agreed to be tested.  Of the 947 tested 12 were HIV positive.  They estimate over the entire year 48 women were HIV positive.  Hardly a large number of cases.  (In both public health and statistics you need to look at the raw number as well as the percentages.  If one year in a city of a million people you have one case of polio and the next year there are two cases of polio you have a 50% growth rate, but hardly a public health problem.)

Some things to note for those who read between the lines.
The study was done by a group seeking money for HIV education and prevention.
It was not a random sample.  The sample came from those who were in high-risk categories.
All of those that were found to be HIV positive were drug users or had 5 or more sex partners.
(Needle marks apparently were the major criteria for inclusion in the study.)
Tijuana General Hospital does a lot of charity work.  It’s patients are not a cross sample.

What the article didn’t say, but hinted at, was the women selected for testing were drug addicts and sex workers.  They had a 1.2% infection rate.  In California the infection rate of the population at large of woman in labor is 0.006%--or half that of the TJ high-risk group.  Frankly, I think they were very disappointed they didn’t find a higher infection rate.  I also find it interesting that the same day this story was printed in the UT an Associated Press article on AIDS stated that 1% of the population in New Year City are HIV positive.

This study seems to support other studies that HIV is not a huge problem in Tijuana, including among sex workers.  Unless, of course, you agree with the UT that 1% is a high rate.