No, they were merely the first populations where HIV was detected because their risky behavior made them more likely to contract HIV/AIDS.

But there were many other vectors besides needles and unprotected gay sex (see article linked), in fact, the index patient simply consumed bush meat that they probably should have left alone.

Yes, the first widely recognized case of HIV in the United States involved a highly promiscuous gay flight attendant, and this likely sped the spread of aids in the first period in the United States up considerably.

But once non-gay people became infected it did not take all that long before they were the bulk of the HIV positive population.

Even so, gay men engaging in unprotected sex and drug addicts re-using needles or swapping needles with others are at extremely high risk for HIV and Hepatitis contraction.

You claim the majority of HIV patients in the United States are heterosexual. Do you have any evidence of this? It cuts against everything I have ever read on the topic and everything I and other people in this thread can churn up.

Not in the United States - but it is my understanding that AIDS is common in heterosexual people in areas hardest hit, like sub-Saharan Africa. Some countries have infections as high as 20%, which seems very likely to include more straight people than gay people.

The United States only has a fraction of the world's HIV or AIDS cases, so it seems plausible that worldwide straight people could still represent the majority of cases.

It does seem difficult to get reliable estimates outside the US & Europe, though.

You are 100% correct, apologies. Even so, be careful to extrapolate to the rest of the world and the odds are not such that you can make it seem as though HIV is a gay/drug user condition and that the rest of the population can ignore it, anything but and such thinking would inevitably lead to the pendulum swinging the other way again.

Publicly adjusting your beliefs in response to evidence is super rare and and extremely important skill. I really respect that you took the time to do this throughout the thread.

Reminds me of GDPR threads.

I would say that so far what I wrote there has been spot on. The sky didn't fall, nobody got sued, all the fear mongering was for naught.

Definitely true!