The meningitis outbreak that has hit the gay community and killed a friend and co-star of mine, Kyle Spidle, is not even a sexually-transmitted disease. That's not how it's listed. It can be caught from kissing, or sharing a drink and it kills within days.
Lawrence Ferber at Next Magazine has written up an excellent piece on the outbreak, "Same Band, Different Tune". His title refers to "And The Band Played On", the incredible book by Randy Shilts about the emergence of AIDS, and this is precisely the unwanted association that has put gay media in such a spin when it comes to covering this deadly outbreak (not an epidemic, and a vaccine is available ) that nobody - not even the NY Times - knows why it's targeting our community.
Lawrence gets it right in this piece, giving all the information you need to know without fanning the flames of hysteria. I'm also quoted in the feature, though I wish it didn't have to be...
Kyle Spidle
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