growing HIV epidemic

Remember a couple of years ago when the LA Gay and Lesbian Center ran ads like the one above?

Lot's of folks - gay and not - got their panties in a knot about this campaign.

"It´s not a gay disease anymore. The 'face of AIDS´has changed"

"A disease cannot have a sexuality."

"This campaing stigmatizes us even more."

And yadda yadda. Fact is - then and now - HIV is quite prevalent among gay men and men who have sex with men the world over, alarmingly so. In the United States and all over the place. Read previous blog posts right here that, sadly, tragically. back these claims up.

Pretending HIV is somehow a generalized epidemic just doesn´t sit with the facts in MOST of the world. Making believe that AIDS is everyone´s business, and that everyone is at risk, does no one a favor.  read more »

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 »