Is AIDS A Black Disease?

When I saw this headline on the CNN website I was floored. What the hell kind of question is that? Are we really that ignorant? The answer is simple. Yes!!

This reminds me of the lies that were told about HIV/AIDS and are still being told. Remember the lie that HIV/AIDS is a gay disease, and that only gay people get it? WRONG!! Remember the lie that you could contract HIV/AIDS from kissing someone with the disease? WRONG!! Remember the lie that you could contract HIV/AIDS by shaking hands with someone who has the disease? WRONG!! Remember the lie that you could contract HIV/AIDS by using the same dishes and silverware that someone with the disease used? WRONG!! Ooh, and the biggest lie of all is told by the Catholic Church, particularly in Africa. They tell people that condoms are laced with AIDS. WRONG!! Condoms can help prevent diseases!!

Now we're asking if AIDS is a Black disease? Are you kidding me?

Report: Black U.S. AIDS rates rival some African nations

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The AIDS epidemic among African-Americans in some parts of the United States is as severe as in parts of Africa, according to a report out Tuesday.

"Left Behind - Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS" is intended to raise awareness and remind the public that the "AIDS epidemic is not over in America, especially not in Black America," says the report, published by the Black AIDS Institute, an HIV/AIDS think tank focused exclusively on African-Americans.

"AIDS in America today is a black disease," says Phill Wilson, founder and CEO of the institute and himself HIV-positive for 20 years. "2006 CDC data tell us that about half of the just over 1 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS are black."

Although black people represent only about one in eight Americans, one in every two people living with HIV in the United States is black, the report notes.

The report uses just-released data from UNAIDS and existing CDC and Census data to highlight grim statistics:

• AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between ages 25 and 34. It's the second-leading cause of death in black men 35-44.

• In Washington, more than 80 percent of HIV cases are among black people, that's one in 20 residents.

"Five percent of the entire population (in DC) is infected... that's comparable to countries like Uganda or South Africa," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN for the recent "Black in America" documentary.

According to this report, if black Americans made up their own country, it would rank above Ethiopia (420,000 to 1,300,000) and below Ivory Coast (750,000) in HIV population. Both Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast are among the 15 nations receiving funds from the President's Emergency Plan For Aids Relief. The United States has given about $15 billion to PEPFAR nations in the past five years.

The Black AIDS Institute says it's not criticizing the federal government for helping poorer countries cope with the AIDS epidemic. Rather, it's saying the "AIDS epidemic [in the U.S.] is not getting the kind attention that it merits."

"We understand the needs of black folk in Johannesburg (South Africa)," Wilson says. "Why can't we understand the needs of them in Jackson, Mississippi? We understand the needs in Nigeria or Botswana, why not understand the needs of Los Angeles or Oakland?"

Wilson says more needs to be done to prevent the spread of HIV in this country. The report states that the U.S. government "increased spending on HIV prevention, treatment and support programs for low-income countries dramatically, at the same time that domestic remained all but flat."

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, domestic prevention efforts make up the smallest part of the HIV/AIDs budget, the 2009 budget request includes $892 million for domestic HIV prevention efforts, the same as in 2008.

In this report, Wilson and others urge the federal government and private foundations to significantly increase funding for HIV prevention and treatment programs. The report also calls on international agencies to hold the U.S. government accountable for failure to address HIV/AIDS epidemic in its own country (despite lauding it for its PEPFAR efforts). It also urges black communities in the United States to fight the stigma and overcome prejudice associated with being infected with HIV.

"Peggy" found out 10 years ago that she was HIV positive. The fact that she's asked us to not use her real name is an example of the stigma that's still attached to having the virus that causes AIDS, especially in the African-American community.

"I don't really talk to many other people about it, 'cause I guess maybe, they don't want to talk," says the 27-year-old Lake Charles, Louisiana, woman. Others like her, she says, are still too ashamed to admit they have HIV.

Marvelyn Brown, 24, of Washington, is more open about her status. She learned she had HIV when she was only 19, after one time of unprotected sex while in a monogamous relationship.

Brown has told her story in a book, "The Naked Truth, " and to CNN in last week's special report, "Black in America." She regularly addresses community groups, trying to help educate blacks about the risk of of HIV and AIDS.

The report was funded by the Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

The bottom line is, ANYONE AND EVERYONE CAN CONTRACT HIV. It doesn't matter if you're black, white, hispanic, asian, native american, or anything else. You can get the disease.

I'm really sick and tired of hearing that it's this group or that group's disease. It's a disease that anybody can get, PERIOD!!

HIV/AIDS Ignorance And Facts

New Jersey is attempting to become the first state to require HIV/AIDS testing for both a pregnant woman and the child.

As I was surfing some blogs this morning, I came across ignorant statements about HIV/AIDS. It's 2007, and people are still delusional about the disease. They don't get it!! They think that just because they're married they're not going to get the disease. I mean, don't you know that all wedding vows are sacred, and nobody ever breaks those wedding vows?

Another ignorant statement has to do with condom use. I get so sick and tired of hearing religious people (especially Catholics) profess that condom use is EVIL. Given the choice between using a condom to prevent getting HIV or not using a condom so that they stay true to their faith and getting HIV, some of these morons would honestly choose the second option. They don't want to go to hell for actually putting on a condom. The problem there is the Church. Their faith teaches them that condoms are evil because they "prevent life." But what they refuse to acknowledge is that not using a condom also TAKES LIFE. The Church also doesn't help when they have these lunatics preaching about how condoms are laced with AIDS.

Another ignorant statement has to do with abstinence. I'm sick and tired of hearing that the only solution to preventing disease is abstinence. It's a crock!! If we're being realistic, you're not going to prevent everyone in the world from having sex. If they're going to have sex, they're going to have sex. It's nothing more than pushing your moral and religious beliefs on other people.

The following statistics and information is from the Global Health Council:

* By the end of 2005, 40.3 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, including 17.5 million women and 2.3 million children under the age of 15.

* 4.9 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2005, including 700,000 children. Of these, 3.2 million new infections occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.

* In 2005 alone, a total of 3.1 million people died of HIV/AIDS-related causes.

* World-wide, only one in ten persons infected with HIV has been tested and knows his/her HIV status.

* Ninety-six percent of people with HIV live in the developing world, most in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic continues to grow in this region, with nearly a million new infections between 2003 and 2005.

* In some African countries, three quarters of those infected are women - many of whom have not had more than one sexual partner.

* An estimated 5 to 6 million people in low- and middle-income countries will die in the next two years if they do not receive antiretroviral treatment (ART). At the end of 2005, only one in seven Asians and one in ten Africans who need ART were receiving it.

* In six African countries, (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe), more than one in five of all pregnant women have HIV/AIDS. In Swaziland, nearly 40% of pregnant women are HIV-positive.

* Without prevention efforts, 35% of children born to an HIV positive mother will become infected with HIV. At least a quarter of newborns infected with HIV die before age one, and up to 60% will die before reaching their second birthdays.

* Injecting drug use and commercial sex work are fueling the epidemic across Asia and Eastern Europe, and few countries are sufficiently reaching out to these marginalized groups or addressing the poverty that often underlies these behaviors.

* Discrimination against vulnerable groups is evident in the Russian Federation, where more than 90% of the estimated one million people living with HIV were infected through injecting drug use, but represent only 13% of those receiving antiretroviral therapy.

* By the end of 2005, women accounted for nearly half of all people living with AIDS worldwide, and represent almost 60% of infections in sub-Saharan Africa. The impact of HIV on women is also growing in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South and South-East Asia. Moreover, young women are several times more likely than young men to contract the disease through heterosexual contact. Worldwide, 62% of infected young people are girls, and that number soars to 77% in sub-Saharan Africa. A woman's vulnerability to the virus is attributable not only to biological differences, but also to deeply entrenched socio-economic inequalities that further compound her risk.

* Because 70% of the world's poor are women, women have fewer economic options. They are far more vulnerable because of absolute poverty to engage in transactional sex to pay for food, school fees and other necessities. They are also vulnerable to coercive or forced sex and often unable to negotiate condom use. One in three women world-wide have been affected by gender-based violence, but poor women are even more likely to be abused.

* Many women, particularly married women, cannot control the circumstances under which sex takes place. Research in several countries shows that for far too many young girls, the first sexual experience is coerced or forced. Married women are especially unable to negotiate sex or condom use with their husbands who may have extramarital partners. Some research indicates that married women are in fact more at risk for HIV than unmarried women because they are more frequently exposed to intercourse within marriage.

* HIV-positive women may transmit HIV to their children during pregnancy, in childbirth or through breastfeeding. Today, mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV is the primary mode of acquisition of HIV for the more than 2 million children living with HIV. While antiretroviral therapy significantly reduces the risk of MTCT of HIV, prevention coverage in the 30 African countries with the highest HIV prevalence is only 5 percent.

* As AIDS ravages families and communities, the burden of caring for ill family members rests mainly with women and girls - many of whom may be seriously ill themselves. A woman affected by HIV/AIDS is plunged further into poverty, losing the ability to provide for herself and her children. Combined with pervasive social stigma and the collapse of traditional family and support structures, HIV/AIDS is eroding the status of women in many countries.

I'm tired of the ignorance!! This is not a "gay person's" disease. This is not a "drug user's" disease. This is a disease that anyone can get. Stop taking the ignorant approach that because you're married you're not going to get the disease. Your spouse could CHEAT, or they could become infected accidently with the disease. You could be a rape victim, and contract the disease through no fault of your own if your rapist has HIV. You could be given a bad blood transfusion, and contract the disease through no fault of your own. You could be working in the medical profession, and contract the disease by accidently pricking yourself with an infected needle from a patient. There are things that could happen. It doesn't just take drug use and promiscuity to get this disease.

People need to wake up because this is not the 80's when nobody knew a damn thing about this disease. They need to stop spouting their archaic moral and religious beliefs. They need to check back into reality!! We need to be proactive, and reactive instead of simply dismissing it with an "oh well, it's your own damn fault" attitude.