I'm posting this here in case Kara doesn't see my other post in my thread in the Support area. I'm just curious, I'm pretty sure it's not true but I'm trying to find data to prove it. My mother seems to have done some "research" that apparently told her lymphoma is more prevalent in our community. Now I'm pretty sure what she must have been looking at was HIV/AIDS research, which I know lymphoma is a bit more prevalent in HIV/AIDS patients, but she said "no there was nothing about AIDS in it" so I feel like what she found was probably something like a religion website to try and make gays look like diseased people. Is there any proof to show lymphoma isn't more prevalent in healthy gay men that I can show my mother so she can get off her whole "you could get lymphoma cause you're gay"
Well, first, I've never heard of that in the popular media. I think your mom's confusing it with AIDS victims, because a late symptom of AIDS is what used to be called "diffuse undifferentiated lymphoma." It could have a different name now, but I don't know what it is. Now, stop and think for a second. Ask her to do this same thing. Since gays don't reproduce, the only explanation for a cancer exclusive to them must have a viral origin. The cancer in this case, lymphoma, can be associated with Epstein-Barr Virus...but 90% of adults show evidence of prior infection anyway. As far as I know, no other journal showed a stronger link between viral infections and lymphoma. EBV is pretty much all that's been shown, and contraction of that disease has NOTHING to do with sex. tl;dr: Your mom's full of shit...unless of course she's flipping deep through medical journals and digging up obscure, unreviewed articles.
She may have seen one with a really bad sampling bias...may have said something like "90% of homosexuals have lymphoma" taken from a sample of homosexuals with lymphoma Sounds ridiculous, but I have actually seen studies that are literally this tautological. Which also begs the question, "How is it not 100%?"
If you think about it... an argument that lymphoma is more prevalent in gay people runs counter to the whole religious concept that being gay is a choice. Because *if* it were more prevalent the only way that would be the case would be if there is a genetic predisposition in gay people toward lymphoma. Otherwise, the prevalence would be tied to other correlates of being gay, such as HIV infection, and would extend to other people who are not gay but are HIV infected. But in any case, I don't think there's any data to support the notion, for the reasons already stated by others in this thread.
I'm not sure where your mother is getting her information but I'm not aware of any connection between homosexuality and lymphoma. We had a significant increase in a particular type of lymphoma called non-hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) in the 1980s. These cases were amount HIV+ men and women. There was also a similar increase in another rare type of lymphona called Burkitt's lymphoma. Again, there was a high correlation with HIV. These cases have decreased significantly because of widespread use of antiretrovirals in HIV+ persons. The incidence of Burkitt's lymphoma is particularly high in HIV+ children in equatorial Africa. They're not known to be gay. And the incidence of NHL was not unique to homosexual HIV+ people. It didn't discriminate- it affected heterosexuals, IV drug users, hemophiliacs and Haitians- all who had one thing in common- HIV.
Thanks Kara. Yeah I'm not sure where my mom got it from. Now my father does have NHL so I am maybe more susceptible, but as for the there's now even higher a risk than there was because I'm gay, well let's just say, Mom's needs to do more research.
