Reliability of Evidence from Others

Here are some thoughts and questions I have about Kida's last three paragraphs in his "Reliability of Evidence Received from Others" section in Chapter 12 "The Influence of Others"

It's increasingly difficult to make appropriate decisions when we're exposed to a barrage of faulty information. The risk of AIDS for heterosexuals in the United States is a good example. What's your risk of contracting AIDS if you are a non-IV-drug-using heterosexual? In the 1980s we were told by the media: "Research studies now project that one in five heterosexuals could be dead from AIDS at the end of the next three years. That's by 1990. One in five. It is no longer just a gay disease"; "By 1991 one in ten babies may be AIDS victims"; and "The AIDS epidemic is the greatest threat to society, as we know it, ever faced by civilization--more serious than the plagues of past centuries." If we believed these sensational accounts we'd stop having sex altogether (pp 225-6).

Here is Kida's note explaining the media 1980s media quotations:

The quotes are by Oprah Winfrey, USA Today, and a member of the president's AIDS commission, respectively, in M. Fumento, The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS (New York: Basic Books, 1990), pp. 3, 249, 324. Also see Gilovic, How We Know What Isn't So, p. 107.

I definitely want to check these sources out, but isn't it a bit strange Kida's using a secondary source when one could use the Fumento notes to track down the original article from Oprah and USA Today? It's possible Fumento might have imperfect thinking also.

Moving onto Kida's next paragraph:

What happened? News sources played up the accounts of heterosexual transmission, emphasizing that it's a heterosexual disease in Africa and Haiti. They typically failed to note that most heterosexual transmissions involve one partner from a high-risk troup (e.g., gay, bisexual, intravenous drug user, hemophiliacs), and that public health practices in Africa and Haiti are so different from in the United States that they don't tell us much about the risk in the United States. But sensational stories get the ratings (p 226).

I've always wondered how so many girls could get HIV from "straight" guys. If it's statistically more dangerous to be the receptive partner, then how could so many straight guys be passing on the virus if they're only penetrating? Are that many of them sharing needles? I've always suspected more of these guys might be getting penetrated themselves than the governments, studies, and media let on. So my interest was really piqued when I zoned in on Kida's claim "they typically failed to note that most heterosexual transmissions involve one partner from a high-risk troup (e.g., gay, bisexual, intravenous drug user, hemophiliacs) . . ." However, what study or statistics are being used for this claim??? Kida has no note for this line!

Ok, here is the final paragraph of "The reliability of evidence received from others" section in "The Influence of Others" chapter:
So how can we know whether to trust someone's information? Here are some hints. Consider the source. With the AIDS issue, we have to look for the views of epidemiologists who try to understand and predict the spread of infectious diseases--not the views of sex therapists, actors, or talk show hosts. And, keep in mind that reporters can distort the views of the experts. Place more emphasis on past statistics instead of future projections. Even the experts have a hard time predicting future events, as we've seen. Be wary of anecdotal information. News magazines are notorious for reporting the problems of a single person, and since we are storytellers, we pay particular attention to that information. But as noted, personal accounts just don't provide good evidence to base our beliefs upon (p 226).

Again, this seems imprecise. Kida went on at length earlier in the book to explain how predictions are so often wrong, and frequently not much better than chance probability, or even worse, so why does he say we should look toward epidemiologists--what if it is an epidemiologist that falls into the same thinking errors Kida warns against? Admittedly, he also warns against predicting future events in the same paragraph. Plus, there are still stones unturned:

• For the guys who are spreading it to the girls, how can we learn how they got the virus first? Penetrating an infected girl, penetrating an infected guy (well, that doesn't sound very straight to me . . .), sharing needles, getting a blood transfusion, or getting penetrated by an infected guy (well, that's really not straight). What are the statistcs?
  
• If being bisexual or gay is high-risk, what is the statistical risk for being bisexual or gay if they use condoms every time they penetrate or get penetrated? How many people use these condoms all the time?
• If the medical care is so different in these countries, as Kida claims, then how many hemophiliacs or other people needing blood are actually fortunately enough to get a blood transfusion in the first place?