From the Archives: Sorry Conservapedia and Peter LaBarbera, but 'gay bowel syndrome' still does not exist

Editor's note - This is a piece I wrote in 2007. It illustrates just how some homophobes are determined to twist science to suit their lying agendas.

Our friend Peter LaBarbera is practically falling over himself over in his latest post:

Conservapedia, a new online encyclopedia seeking to become a conservative alternative to the very liberal-biased Wikipedia takes a politically incorrect look at the medical phenomenon known as ‘Gay Bowel Syndrome’ — a term that homosexual activists are trying to purge from scientific and popular usage. Gay Bowel Syndrome describes a “clinical pattern of anorectal and colon diseases which occur with unusual frequency in homosexual patients,” according to Conservapedia, which cites mainstream medical sources such as Johns Hopkins’ ‘HIV Guide’ in its article with 93 footnotes.

I talk about "gay bowel syndrome" in my book. I say the following:

According to the “Free Online Dictionary and Thesaurus,” http://encyclopedia.
thefreedictionary.com:

“Gay bowel syndrome was a term fi rst used in 1976 prior to the discovery of AIDS, to describe a series of parasitic disorders caused by oral/anal contact and allegedly related to gay male sexual activity. The term was abandoned by the medical community in the 1980s because the problems that attributed to it were not specific to homosexuals, not confined to just the bowels, nor did it meet the medical definition of a syndrome.”

First of all, Conservapedia is not necessarily an accurate or objective source of information. It was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of well-known conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly stated that he founded the project because he felt Wikipedia had a liberal, anti-Christian, and anti-American bias.

In other words, Conservapedia is another case of a someone attempting to manufacture his version of the truth when reality does not suit him.

In this particular case, Conservapedia claims the following:

Gay bowel syndrome is a clinical pattern of anorectal and colon diseases which occur with unusual frequency in homosexual patients . . .

Conservapedia uses three sources for this claim and all of them are over 10 years old; two of them are from the 1970s.

Let's break this down some more.

Peter makes a huge point to note that the Conservapedia article contains 93 footnotes that, according to him, proves that "gay bowel syndrome" is a legitimate term.

Let's look at those footnotes:

Footnotes 1, 5, 15, 25, 31, 40, 47, 58 are the same - an article published in 1976 entitled The gay bowel syndrome: clinico-pathologic correlation in 260 cases.

And that is not the only case in which the article uses duplicate footnotes, including the following examples:

Footnotes 2, 7, and 11- Clinical features and diagnosis - Inflammatory Bowel Disease, part 1 American Family Physician, Feb 15, 1993 by Glen E. Hastings, Richard J. Weber

Footnotes 10 and 12 - Dr. Michael Heller, The gay bowel syndrome: a common problem of homosexual patients in the emergency department. Annals of Emergency Medicine 1980

Conservapedia also says:

in 2004 Medscape stated that gay bowel syndrome is a significant issue in regards HIV infection (The Johns Hopkins HIV Guide website also features an article which is essentially a duplicate of the aforementioned article at Medscape).

The Medscape piece and the John Hopkins article says the following:

This is a retrospective review of clinical proctitis in gay men seen at a STD clinic in San Francisco. The review included men with rectal symptoms of pain, itching, tenesmus, rectal bleeding or discharge who underwent clinical evaluation including anoscopy with diagnostic tests for C. trachomatis, N. gonorrhoeae, HSV and syphilis. The results show relatively high rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and HSV. No pathogen was found in 46 of the 101 patients studied.

Yes, I bolded that first sentence to make a point. Examples of gay men seen at STD clinics (especially in one city) are not necessarily indicative of the lgbt community at large. It is the same as using examples of African-American men in prison to gauge the habits of African-American men not incarcerated.

The articles also say the studies of those men in STD clinics took place in the years 2000-2001. That is six to seven years ago.

Now the articles do use the phrase "gay bowel syndrome," but they are vague as to the legitimacy of the term. And that does give Peter and Conservapedia a little raft to stake their lies.

But other than those two articles, does Conservapedia have any recent information?

Not necessarily. Conservapedia mentions 2007 articles regarding STDs, but only as an attempt to link those STDs together as an example of "gay bowel syndrome."

As a matter of fact, a good portion of the information Conservapedia has regarding the term "gay bowel syndrome" itself is from the 1970s and 80s; the years that the term was thought to be legitimate.

And Conservapedia even contradicts itself by saying the following:

Gay bowel syndrome is a clinical pattern of anorectal and colon diseases which occur with unusual frequency in homosexual patients (the diseases are not exclusive to male homosexuals).

Doesn't that last statement contradict the entire tone of the Conservapedia article?

Lastly, Conservapedia says the following:

Although the term gay bowel syndrome is not used as frequently as the 1980's, as mentioned previously Medscape has an article on gay bowel syndrome that was published in 2004 that was entitled ''New Look at "Gay Bowel Syndrome". Johns Hopkins HIV Guide website has a duplicate of the aforementioned article by John G. Bartlett, M.D. at Medscape which was entitled New Look at "Gay Bowel Syndrome". In addition, an online medical dictionary has an entry on gay bowel syndrome. Also, the website Biology-Online.org has an article on gay bowel syndrome.

As I said before, John Hopkins and the Medscape articles was talking about data that is close to seven years old and solely dealt with gay men in an STD clinic in San Francisco. And neither article goes into detail regarding the legitimacy of the term "gay bowel syndrome."

Lastly, both online dictionaries mentioned by Conservapedia (particularly Biology-Online.org) looks like online dictionaries in which anyone can add terms.

Basically, Conservapedia is taking advantage of online technology to pass along distortions and untruths as reality. And Peter is just loving it:

We at Americans For Truth believe that it is long past time for federal and state governments (and academia) to study the serious health risks associated with male homosexual sex and promiscuity, just as federally-sponsored studies helped educate the public on the significant dangers of smoking. Allowing homosexual activists a “protester’s veto” over legitimate medical inquiry and research will only cost more men’s lives, as larger society and especially young men are denied clear information on the additional health risks of “gay” sex viz a viz normal, natural straight sex.

Peter, if there should be any investigations, they should focus on why you and folks like yourself obsess over what you think lgbts do in the bedroom.

And let's not forget Conservapedia.

I guess its next goal will be attempting to give Paul Cameron some degree of credibility.

2009 UPDATE - It seems that Conservapedia is trying to give Paul Cameron some degree of credibility. The entry on him says in part:

The APA and ASA have issued statements denouncing Cameron for holding positions contrary to theirs. They have not, however, pointed out any specific flaws in his published peer-reviewed scientific papers. So it is patently obvious that they are trying to suppress his findings for political reasons

Talk about having your fingers in your ears. For prosperity's sake, let's look at the actual story regarding the APA (American Psychological Association) and ASA's (American Sociological Association) position on Paul Cameron:

Homophobic 'researcher' Paul Cameron in all of his repulsive glory