Have Better Drugs Led to Riskier Sex?

Since the approval of the first protease inhibitors, gay and bisexual men in San Francisco have been more likely to engage in riskier sex'even as the HIV prevalence rate in the city continues to climb, according to data in the American Journal of Public Health. Reports of unprotected anal intercourse with a partner who has a different or unknown serostatus rose from 9.3% in 1997 to 14.6% in 2002. The surveyed men also reported having more sexual partners, from an average of 10.7 in 1997 to 13.8 in 2002. During that same period, the HIV prevalence rate among both gay and bisexual men in the city rose from 19.6% to 26.8%, according to the surveys. But there was a bright spot gleaned from the surveys: The percentage of men reporting serosorting'choosing sex partners of the same serostatus as oneself'climbed from 18.9% to 26.8% during the study period, with the largest increase in serosorting reported among men ages 18 to 29.