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 Highest Infection Rates Affecting Youthful Black Gay Men 'Epidemic the Likes of which Humankind has Never Seen' |
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Compiled By GayToday
Last week, CDC released startling new data that shows young gay men are contracting HIV at a rate not seen in more than a decade. A survey of 2,942 gay men ages 23 to 29 found that 4.4 percent were becoming infected with the HIV virus each year. The pace of new infections varied greatly by race and ethnicity. It was 2.5 percent among whites, 3.5 percent among Latinos and 14.7 percent among Blacks. Former AIDS "czar" Sandra Thurman calls it "an epidemic the likes of which humankind has never seen." Surgeon General David Satcher says HIV/AIDS infection rates among young Black gays are approaching the rates in the African nation of Botswana. Phill Wilson, founder of the African American AIDS Policy and Training Institute, says newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) show "we have a screaming emergency...and we've failed in developing prevention messages for young black men who have sex with men." "For some people, AIDS has become a manageable, chronic disease due to access to more effective drug treatments," said National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) Political Director Tim McFeeley. "While this is good news, it has perhaps led to a sense of complacency about the disease within our community, particularly young people who do not remember the early stages of the epidemic. "As we mark the 20th anniversary, we must demand that the Bush administration revise its funding proposal for HIV prevention and treatment, and we must demand that schools implement the safe-sex education curricula that we know lowers the incidence rate of this virus."
"The gay community needs to reaffirm its commitment to ending this continuing crisis. And there is much we can do. We can hand down our experience learned in the epidemic's first twenty years. We can build new leadership among young gays and lesbians so that they can develop new creative prevention strategies. "We can confront the drug use that too often accompanies gay social life and heightens HIV risk. We can support our community-based organizations that help people live with HIV/AIDS. We can build a community that sometimes values the experiences of a long life over the fleeting physical beauty of youth. We can overcome the racial and sexual barriers that divide communities affected by the disease. "Several tools are at our disposal. The networks and organizations we built to fight AIDS still exist for us to use--although many of them struggle with larger caseloads and fewer donors. And our AIDS advocates work diligently to ensure that government funding increases and that researchers persevere to try to find better treatments, vaccines, microbicides and a cure. "Twenty years after the start of the AIDS epidemic, we have much for which we are thankful. New treatments have bought precious time for those affected by the disease. And there is renewed hope that this promise of time will be shared with more than just a few of the 34 million people living with HIV worldwide. "For yourself, for your community, for our country and for millions across the globe, let us mark this sad anniversary with a renewed commitment to stop this disease once and for all." |
Washington, D.C.- On June 5, 1981, CDC first documented the existence of a syndrome of severe immune deficiency in five gay men in Los Angeles. Twenty years later, nearly 450,000 lives have been lost in the United States, and 22 million people have died worldwide. In some African nations, 20 percent of the adult population is HIV-positive. And 40 million children in Africa will be orphaned during the next decade.
