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There was a flurry of press activity yesterday due to the release of the long-awaited revision of HIV incidence estimates for the United States...

This morning, CHAMP put out a release calling for a national AIDS strategy that would bridge race and sexuality. Here's some of the key quotes; the full release is available in the AIDS2008.com press room:

Walt Senterfitt, CHAMP board co-chair and an epidemiologist living with HIV who served as a Visiting Scientist at CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention:

“The new estimates confirm that a vast majority of new infections in the U.S. occur in gay and bisexual men, and that Blacks are significantly more heavily impacted than other racial/ethnic categories. However, the data fail to clearly link the two, perpetuating a longstanding, damaging polarization. We need CDC to clearly show the HIV incidence numbers in gay men and other MSM of color.

A substantial number of Black people infected every year are gay or bisexual, and a substantial proportion of gay and bisexual men infected are Black. In fact, the heaviest impact is at the nexus of the two – being both black and a man who has sex with men. Yet this population is significantly marginalized, even stigmatized within both larger populations of which it is an integral part. A national AIDS strategy must tackle this fundamental challenge."

Jim Pickett, Director of Advocacy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago:  read more »