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AIDS and The Self
July 06, 2004
Common sense and personal responsibility would go a long way toward curbing the spread of HIV and AIDS, now on an alarming upswing worldwide. There's no denying horrific instances in Africa where AIDS-infected soldiers rape and infect village women. A serious lack of public health information also hinders AIDS prevention in Africa, and to an extent, elsewhere. But much is known by now, and it's harder to ignore the role of individual behavior and decisions. The United Nations isn't good for much, but today is an exception. The U.N. issued its "2004 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic". Consider these excerpts from the Executive Summary. In Asia, the HIV epidemic remains largely concentrated among injecting drug users, men who have sex with men, sex workers, clients of sex workers and their immediate sexual partners. In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control continues tracking HIV/AIDS cases by cause. Scroll down to "Cases by Exposure Category" here, and you'll see that men having sex with men, and injection drug use account for the vast majority of cumulative AIDS cases diagnosed in America through 2002. (The CDC data stretches back to the early 80s). You'll also want to look at this chart from the CDC, titled, "Estimated numbers of diagnosed cases of HIV/AIDS, by race/ethnicity, sex, exposure category, and age category, 1999–2002—30 areas with confidential name-based HIV infection reporting." It shows that male/male sex is an increasing cause while injection drug use is slightly declining or holding steady as a cause; that heterosexual sex is the cause for a significantly higher percentage of black women who get AIDS than for white or Hispanic women; and that Asians/Pacific Islanders hardly figure into the U.S. data at all. In "AIDS: Darkening in America," an article in the current issue of U.S. News and World Report, Susan Brink notes that while blacks are just 12 percent of the U.S. population, they account for half of new HIV cases reported here. Part of the discussion, especially about black women getting AIDS from sex with black men, has to do with "down-low brothers," or secretly bisexual black men. As author E. Lynn Harris, a former "down-low brother," says: ..with large numbers of African-American women being diagnosed with HIV—72 percent of all new female cases...women’s lives today depend on their knowing who’s sleeping with whom. I began researching an AIDS update after hearing from Rosenblog participant Argus Milton, a 23-year-old graduate student from Atlanta. He has some views he'd like to share on HIV/AIDS and the black community, which are ever the more timely given recent news. Argus writes: By no means is AIDS just a black problem. It affects millions of people around the world. With that said I would like to comment on the dramatic increase of infections amongst our own....Whites overall attach less of a stigma towards the "host" of the disease, meaning homosexuals. Because of that, they were able to combat the disease better because they were more open to discuss and face the fact that a large number of white men were gay." Posted by Matt Rosenberg at July 6, 2004 03:09 PM Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry: Comments:
One thing that impresses me most about Uganda is the renewed sense of moral clarity and shared sense of accomplishment brought about by their sucesses against HIV/AIDS, summed up well in this entitled "Beyond Slogans" from the Guttmacher Report on Public Policy: This from the Coca-Cola Foundation outlining the kinds of programs that have been implemented throughout Africa: This older discussion at Johns Hopkins regarding Uganda's experience is interesting in that it deals with how to make the message known - and how (in hindsight we can see) Africa has had some important success: In America we hear a great deal about the African experience with A-B-C: But A-B-C is only part of Africa's story. What must be underscored is that a 'side' benefit to Uganda's HIV/AIDs prevention programs is actually at the core of creating stronger society: namely, the key role of the renewed nuclear family in defeating the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In the final analysis, it is about morality. Uganda has done this while 're-empowering' men through mass media that it is all about 'one wife, for life' and other messages. Ugandan society is experiencing an incredible benefit from this work to lower infection rates: families strengthened by this cohesive message are succeeding economically like never before seen when there is buy-in to the message of 'Father stay, don't stray' What I'm saying is: a whole bunch of A & B is going on in this success story and C is important but not at the core of Uganda's success. I really want to compliment Argus Milton for getting at these same incredibly important issues from his perspective. Please continue to speak out and write about this - the Gates Foundation and World Health Organization are the kind of organizations that are counting on you. And hint to the Coca Cola Foundation: snap up this talented grad student and get him out to see what has been going on in Africa (thanks to you at Coke) and then get him working on ways to bring this important work into America's inner city! Posted by: P Scott Cummins at July 6, 2004 06:40 PMAIDS itself continues to be the same discriminatory, politically incorrect disease it's always been. In 1991 (or thereabouts) Michael Fumento published a book called "the Myth of Heterosexual Aids." The book purported the media as over-dramatizing the predicted spread of the disease in the heterosexual community. By 1990, [Oprah Winfrey had claimed three years earlier] one-fifth of all hetero-sexuals would be dead of AIDS; by 1990, [Gene Antonio wrote in his 1985 bestseller The AIDS Cover-UP?] 64 million Americans would be dead or dying of AIDS. Antonio missed the mark by a little over 63 million and Oprah by approximately one-fifth of the heterosexual population. Are you getting me here people? Aids is not a major problem for heterosexuals. It is easy to avoid. Wear a condom (if you plan to have multiple partners), be monogamous, don't have sex with intravenous drug users. Is that so tough? Before someone blames whitey for holding back information about the spread of the disease in the black community, consider this: CDC originally classified the recently arrived Africans and Haitians as a separate category unto themselves, because it appeared that the disease was following a different pattern in their native countries from that in the United States. As the classification turned into a stereotype, however, the Haitian government lobbied the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a subunit of the U.S. Public Health Service, to "redesignate" this category. Unfortunately, then the African-Americans at large weren't afforded the opportunity to notice the disease was spreading faster among that ethnicity. AIDS deaths keep declining, with about 16,400 in 2002 compared to about 17,400 a year earlier. Flu, in contrast, kills about 36,000 Americans yearly while cancer reaps about 550,000 of us. Pancreatic cancer alone kills almost 14,000 more Americans each year than does AIDS. Making aids more endemic than epidemic. Global aids is a different story than the U.S. But, according to Avert.org "The African countries south of the Sahara have some of the best HIV surveillance systems in the world. They show that the estimated number of newly infected adults and children in Africa reached 3.2 million by the end of 2003. As the rate of HIV infection in the general population rises, the same patterns of sexual risk result in more new infections simply because the chances of encountering an infected partner become higher." Argus has an incredibly valid point of view... you wanna stop Aids among your race before it [race] is wiped out? Protect YOURSELF. Know [the sexual history of] who you are sleeping with. Posted by: rross at July 7, 2004 06:13 AMAIDS is a very serious topic in the AA community. A year before, I read a school published newspaper from the college I attend, that 50% of the women that got tested at the school turned out to be HIV positive. I believe that a major contribution to this is AA men who are living double lives. It makes no sense and it is extremely sad that these men are behaving the way they are, and putting others lives at risk. Part of the problem stems from the way the AA community views homosexuals. Personally, I don't approve it, but I am not one to judgment. There is so much information out there. I have a female friend who admits that she does not use condoms, and hasn't for the past 4 years, despite changing partners frequently. I tried to talk to her, but she just said that she is allergic to latex. This still isn’t an excuse. She tested positive for HIV. However, later she said she returned to the doctor after retesting and they said that she was HIV-negative. She was saved by God's grace. Yet, she still continues to have unprotected sex! Posted by: shigira at July 8, 2004 02:14 PMHi, I noticed you were talking about bisexual issues at this site The biggest disservice is always the media. Total infections for women declined, new infections for women declined, but because they didn't decline as fast as those for homosexual men, statistically their declining number was a 1% increase. Instead of reporting that these numbers were declining across the board (which is true) the headline was "HIV rate increases in women" "Women more at risk from HIV"..etc Almost always they break this down into meaningless things, race, sex, age. This isn't something caused by your race, your sex, or your age. This is caused by behavior. Men, we primarily know what infects men...in order: unprotected homosexual sex, IV drug use, and sex with prostitutes/in exchange for drug trade. We primarily know what infects women...in order: Working as a prostitute/sex in exchange for drugs (paricularly crack cocaine), sex with bisexual men, sex with IV drug users, and having mutiple lesbian relationships. The last one goes to promiscuity, which is a risk factor across the board. Despite that these numbers are declining, there is some scary information out there. In a survery of a LA clinic, 51% of homosexual men who *knew* they were HIV+ did *not* inform their partners. Lifetime sexual partners for gay men remains incredibly high. Yearly sexual partners for gay men (and lesbian women) remains incredibly high. Numbers in the lifetime prevalece of 100+ are not just common, they are below average. Many had more than 100 partners in a year. In one study of gay men who kept sex diaries, 70% of their partners were anonymous one night stands and they averaged 106 partners per year. Monogamy is a loose term, scarely any of the gays men and lesbian women could be defined as this. It's not just AIDS that runs rampant in these communities, all VD does. Lesbian women are 16 times more likely to have syph for instance. Gay men are even more likely. Hepatitis is rampant as well, all varients including the very deadly Hep B. The extent of this behavior is even reflected in a greatly reduced lifespan for both gay men & lesbian women. So AIDS isn't the only killer in terms of promiscuity. This political correct bullshit is costing us, and we need to focus efforts on changing the behaviors in the gay & lesbian community and in the IV drug user community if we are going to have any lasting impact in the US. When the CDC is out in the gay bars handing out a pamphlet with the "51% of infected men wouldn't tell their partner" and giving odds ratios on the next gay man you take home included in the pamphlet -- then maybe we make an impact. Condoms aren't going to fix this. Choosing your partner more wisely, monogamy, and if you can't do that, abstain - will. Posted by: Tim Beers at January 2, 2005 05:29 PMPost a comment
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