Questions focused largely on one issue: Did the doctors really know how AIDS was transmitted? Anal intercourse could be a major problem, the scientists said, given the hepatitis B model of transmission. The virus, obviously present in semen, could be injected directly into the bloodstream through fissures in the rectal lining. Nobody, however, seemed particularly enthralled with Conant’s suggestion that gay men start wearing condoms. The CDC case-control study had indicted promiscuity, a word quickly denounced by gay leaders as “judgmental,” but the doctors could offer little direct advice on
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