Briton faces storm over HIV 'thrill seeker' claim

The notion seems implausible: that homosexual men would actively seek to be infected with the HIV virus as part of a new craze called 'bug chasing' that supposedly helps its practitioners to get a sexual high from danger.

But this weekend, in a move that has prompted a furious debate from the seedier gay bars of San Francisco to the White House, an article in Rolling Stone magazine claims that 'bug chasers' are responsible for up to a quarter of all new annual HIV cases in America.

According to a highly controversial article commissioned by the magazine's new British editor, the practice involves healthy gay men seeking sexual gratification by setting out to become infected with the HIV virus.

In its most startling assertion, the magazine claims that a quarter of the 40,000 new HIV infections in the US every year are of men who are actively seeking to get the virus. Written by Gregory Freeman, a respected journalist, the article focuses on a 32-year-old New Yorker called 'Carlos', who claims he has been trying for years to become infected.

'I know what the risks are and I know that putting myself in this situation is like putting a gun to my head. But I think it turns the other guy on to know that I'm negative and that they're bringing me into the brotherhood. That gets me off too,' Carlos said.

Another gay man, Doug Hitzel, 21, described how he embraced 'bug chasing' after deciding his lifestyle meant it was inevitable he would one day become HIV positive. 'Some days I feel pretty angry and guilty. I look at myself and say "Happy now"?'

Inevitably, the story has provoked uproar, and at the centre of the growing storm is Rolling Stone's editor, Ed Needham. Such a sensational impact was exactly what was demanded from colleagues by Needham when he took over last year. 'The brief is fairly simple: it's an essentially healthy magazine that needs to punch its weight a little bit more on the newsstand and get itself talked about more,' Needham said then.

This weekend, as the magazine stands at the centre of a furious controversy, he has achieved his ambition.

'It's an easy way to disparage all gays and lesbians as sex-crazed and reckless,' said Cathy Renna, of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. She warned that sensationalising the practices of a small number of gay men would give a misleading impression of the majority.

More troubling for Needham was that HIV specialists were queuing up yesterday to rubbish the Rolling Stone investigation.

'While it is true that some people may be behaving carelessly by not taking adequate measure to avoid becoming infected, not once in my years of practice have I ever come across a person who actually set out with the intention of becoming infected,' said Dr Kathleen Jordan, whose practice is in the heart of San Francisco's gay district.

Dr Marshall Forstein, medical director of mental health and addiction services at the Boston-based Fenway Community Health centre, said 'This is entirely a fabrication.'

Shana Krochmal, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based Stop Aids Project, said: 'There is nothing more frustrating than when a story is wrong and inaccurate, and that's all that this story is.'

Dr Bob Cabaj, the head of Behavioural Health Services for San Francisco, says: 'It is an issue, but there's a real fear in sensationalising this. I guess [ Rolling Stone ] was trying to make it a better story.'

Apart from their work in dealing with Aids/HIV patients, what Forstein, Krochmal and Cabaj have in common is that they all feature prominently in the magazine article.

Cabaj was attributed with revealing the article's most startling statistic, but now says: 'The figure is totally false. I never said that. And when the fact checker called me and asked me if I said that, I said no.'

There was no way of knowing what percentage of gay men were looking to get infected but that it was likely to be very small, he added.

Forstein was quoted by the magazine as saying that 'bug chasers' were seen regularly in his health system. 'That is entirely a fabrication,' he now says. 'I have seen two such cases in the last three years, and I can count on one hand how many patients like that I've seen in the last 21 years. I said this was a small phenomenon, that it's a real and significant phenomenon for a specific group of men.

'The real phenomenon in the gay community is that many gay men do not take safe sex seriously. That's a real problem.'

Both Needham and Freeman stood by the story. Freeman told Newsweek: 'This is shocking. I vividly remember these conversations. From the very start, the article has been a touchy issue for everyone involved. I can only guess that now that it's getting a lot of attention, people are getting worried.'

Rolling Stone's editor was equally defiant. 'I have 100 per cent confidence in the fact checker. I looked at the notes. I spoke with Freeman and with the fact checker, and I have total confidence in the story,' he said.

The furore has undoubtedly raised the magazine's fading profile. It is also likely, however, to give succour to those who argued that Needham, who made his name as editor of the British and American editions of FHM magazine, was not the right person to revive a publication which built its reputation on high-quality writing and cutting-edge reporting. Among those who criticised Needham's appointment was Rolling Stone's most famous contributor, Hunter S. Thompson, who described it as desperate.

Needham responded by saying he simply wanted to modernise the magazine while retaining its tradition of investigative reporting.

It is ironic that his efforts to keep this promise have now landed him in so much trouble.