Still a long way to go...

Even with the signing of the new PEPFAR legislation, George Bush's signature program to provide funding to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria around the world, the United States still lacks a detailed policy to fight HIV here in this country. Nevertheless, most people living with HIV in the U.S. are more fortunate than those in other countries where the vast majority of people living with HIV/AIDS do not receive life prolonging medication. In reality, it is estimated that access to antiretroviral treatment is below 10% in every region except the Americas. So, with the greatest health crisis in modern history facing us and a clearly checkered national and international response: where is the outrage?

CBS Evening News Report of African Americans and HIV

The CBS' "Evening News"on Thursday examined HIV/AIDS among blacks living in the U.S. According to CDC, blacks accounted for 49% of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 2006, despite making up only 13% of the population. In addition, 69% of AIDS cases among those ages 13 to 19 and 56% among those ages 20 to 24 are black, the "Evening News" reports." According to the "Evening News," many advocates are saying that presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are not doing enough to address HIV/AIDS. In addition, many advocates are upset that the candidates have said more about addressing HIV/AIDS in Africa, rather than in the black community in the U.S. Is HIV/AIDS in the US too controversial for our presidential candidates to address. Or is it the 'Dick Cheney phenomenon' -remember during the vice presidential debates where he actually said that he was unaware of the rates of HIV in Black women! What is clear to me is that, if we don't put pressure on not just the presidential candidates, but all politicians to address HIV/AIDS, it will never be a political priority.


Visit: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=4291857n

New Data on HIV is coming!

On or around August 3, 2008, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will release new HIV incidence estimates for the United States. These new incidence estimates will provide the clearest picture to date of incidence (or the number of new HIV infections in a given year). Many in the HIV/AIDS field have felt for some time that the CDC estimates have been much higher than what has been reported. Soon we will have a better picture. Stay tuned!

Does charity begin at home?

Many American HIV/AIDS advocates have lamented about how it seems that the major focus of HIV/AIDS funding, especially charitable giving, seems to be concentrated on Africa. While there is no question that the epidemic has infected and killed more people in Sub Saharan Africa than any other place in the world, it seems as if many people don't seem to realize that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is also here. Even the federal government's response has been inadequate. For example:

• In areas such as Detroit, Washington D.C. and the Deep South, HIV rates among segments of the Black community approach those of several countries in Africa.
• If Black America were its own country, it would rank 16th in people living with HIV; 105th in life expectancy and 88th in infant mortality worldwide.

If prevention is the key, than shouldn't we all be doing everything we can to prevent HIV from getting worse in this country, while we still can.

HIV Down South

"The Southern U.S. is not receiving enough federal funding to provide adequate HIV prevention, treatment and support programs,according to a report scheduled to be released on Monday by the Southern AIDS Coalition, the Birmingham News reports. An increasing number of new HIV cases in the South -- combined with"inadequate funding, resources and infrastructure" -- have"resulted in a catastrophic situation in our public health care systems in the South," the report says. Although health officials for years knew that HIV was increasingly affecting the South, they believed the increase in new HIV cases was coming from large cities in Florida, according to Hiers. However, experts concentrated on the Deep South --Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina -- and found HIV cases spreading in rural areaswith large black populations with financial, health and social issues. " Total deaths from AIDS-related causes increased to 190,000 in the South in 2001 through 2005, while the number of such deaths decreased in the rest of the nation during that time period, the report says.

So what are we to do? So far the federal government's response has been to hold down the total amount of HIV prevention and care dollars and slowly begin to redistribute it. At the same time, they have been aggressively pushing more testing. So let me ask you this: what happens if we test more people, find more positives, but don't significantly increase the money available to treat and assist people living with HIV? Well, I think that you know the answer: more rationing of care.

What do you think?

AIDS Conspiracy

Ask a person, like myself, who works in the HIV/AIDS field about "Conspiracy Theories" and you will get an earful. Frankly, they remain one of the greatest obstacles that we face in fighting HIV/AIDS. I know that may be an unbelievable statement, but so many people believe them and hold on to these conspiracies, that they often won't listen or believe the true information. The article below summarizes the origins of some of the major conspiracy theories. Tell me what you think?

Gary

The AIDS Conspiracy Handbook Jeremiah Wright's paranoia, in context. By Juliet Lapidos Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008, at 5:51 PM ET Barack Obama rebuked his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Tuesday for giving sermons in which he blamed the government for creating a racist state and "inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color." Wright isn't the first to say that AIDS originated in the White House. Others have attributed the epidemic to a laboratory accident, malnutrition, or even God's divine will. Here's a field guide to the most prevalent conspiracy theories: Government Involvement The belief cited by Wright—that the government invented HIV—seems to have originated during the early years of the epidemic. In 1986, crackpot East German biologist Jakob Segal published "AIDS: USA Home-Made Evil." According to the pamphlet, scientists at a Fort Detrick, Md., military lab manufactured the disease by synthesizing HTLV-1 (a retrovirus that causes T-cell leukemia) with Visna (a sheep virus). The scientists administered their lethal concoction to prison inmates, who then introduced the disease into the general population. In case you're wondering, Segal has since been accused of being a Soviet disinformation agent. Similarly, the aptly named Boyd E. Graves (who calls himself a doctor although he has only a law degree) has postulated that scientists in the employ of the U.S. Special Virus Program modified Visna to create HIV during the 1970s. The government, with help from pharmaceutical company Merck, added the virus to an experimental hepatitis B vaccine, which was given to gay men and blacks in New York and San Francisco. And then there's Gary Glum, author of Full Disclosure, who fronts the theory that scientists at the Cold Spring Harbor lab in New York engineered HIV, and that the World Health Organization spread the virus under cover of the smallpox eradication program. Glum believes the virus was created to wipe out, or at least control, the black population. (According to a study released in 2005 by the Rand Corp., more than one-quarter of African-Americans believe the disease was engineered in a government lab, and 16 percent think it was created to control the black population.) Laboratory Accident Edward Hooper, a British journalist, argued in his 1999 book, The River, that Dr. Hilary Koprowski of the Wistar Research Institute unintentionally caused the AIDS epidemic by using chimp kidneys to produce an oral polio vaccine. The chimps, says Hooper, were infected with SIV (the simian precursor to AIDS). Then, via an experimental mass-vaccination program in the Belgian Congo, SIV made the jump from monkey to man. Hooper's contaminated polio vaccine thesis sounds less wacky than most conspiracy theories and has attracted support from a few notable academics—including late Oxford professor W.D. Hamilton. But it's definitely wrong. Hooper says Koprowski got his kidney samples from chimps in the Congo. The problem is that the SIV strain endemic to chimps from that region is phylogenetically distinct from HIV. The offending chimps probably came from Cameroon. It's Not a Virus Among the most popular, and pernicious, conspiracy theories is that AIDS isn't caused by a virus at all. Peter Duesberg, a biology professor at University of California-Berkeley, has argued that drugs and promiscuity are the principal causes of the disease in the United States. He attributes AIDS in Africa to malnutrition. South African President Thabo Mbeki has voiced support for the so-called Duesberg hypothesis, and his health minister, Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang, has recommended treating AIDS with foodstuffs, like garlic, rather than pharmaceuticals. God's Punishment The Rev. Jerry Falwell famously argued that AIDS is a plague sent by God to punish homosexuals and American society for tolerating homosexuality. Jerry Thacker, the publisher of Today's Christian Teen and other Christian magazines, has also called AIDS a "gay plague" and referred to homosexuality as "the death style." In 2003, the Bush administration nominated Thacker to serve on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. He withdrew his name under pressure from gay rights groups and Democrats.

A Child is born!

Today, my blog was born. I still am a complete novice about this stuff. But, no guts, no glory, huh. I plan to spend a lot of my blogging, intially, focusing on the issue of HIV and sexual health. In time, well we will just see where it goes. So I encourage everyone to visit and weigh in on the issues. Look forward to seeing you here!