Posted on 02/10/2004 6:14:35 PM PST by yonif
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A sudden, surprising increase in HIV infections has been discovered among male black college students in North Carolina, and officials fear the same is probably happening across the South.
The upsurge is driven by young men having risky sexual encounters with other men. Typically they do not consider themselves to be gay or bisexual and may even have girlfriends, as well.
"It's a public health emergency. I don't know any other way to put it," said Dr. Peter Leone, HIV medical director at the state Health Department.
The increase was first noticed in late 2002, and officials now believe in began in mid-2001 and is still continuing.
The high rate of AIDS infection among U.S. blacks has been one of the most striking difficulties of AIDS prevention.
Blacks are 11 times more likely than white Americans to get AIDS. Even though they make up 12 percent of the population, they account for 39 percent of AIDS cases and 54 percent of new HIV infections.
Among black men, like whites, the leading cause of infection is sex with other men. Experts have long lamented the high rate of risky sex among gay black men. Poverty is often listed as a strong contributor, so the new findings among relatively well-off college students were unexpected.
"We are very concerned about it," said Dr. Ron Valdiserri, deputy HIV chief at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Most Americans would not think about college students as a high-risk group."
Indeed, a CDC (website - news) study on 10 campuses in the 1990s found a very low infection rate.
The North Carolina data were presented Tuesday in San Francisco at the 11th Annual Retrovirus Conference.
Also at the conference, officials presented newly gathered data on HIV infections in New York City. Overall, 1 percent of the city's population carries the virus, including 4 percent of men in their 40s.
Nationwide, an estimated 900,000 people have HIV. The CDC says that in recent years infections have risen somewhat among gay men of all races and fallen slightly among women.
The North Carolina researchers found 84 newly infected male college students over the past three years, 73 of them black. Only one black student admitted using injected drugs, and just two said they had sex only with women. The rest apparently were infected through sex with men.
"The concern is this is our best and brightest within the minority population who are coming down with a lifelong and potentially lethal infection," Leone said.
The researchers said they suspect a similar upsurge may be occurring among black male college students across the South.
"We have no reason to think this is limited to North Carolina," said the CDC's Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick.
Leone said HIV appears to have been recently introduced among black college students. People are much more likely than usual to pass on the virus through sex during their first weeks of infection, and this might explain why so many students have caught it.
When the students were questioned, three-quarters said they thought they were not at high risk of HIV, despite frequent anal intercourse without condoms with different male partners.
"Part of it is message fatigue," Leone said. "They've grown up hearing this thing. It's old stuff to them. They just ignore it."
Another possible factor may be an especially intense stigma against HIV and homosexuality in the South, making the students less likely to discuss their sexual identity or consider themselves gay.
"We have a very marginalized group," he said. "They don't identify with the messages targeted to gay white men."
As hard as it is to believe, there truly are men who engage in homosexual activities who do not believe they are homos. So maybe the classification described above is useful.
In the black community, I think there is less acceptance of homosexuals, as compared to the white community, hence more incentive to not view yourself as a homosexual, even if you are one. So that may explain why public sevice announcements don't work with them.
Finally: In answer to the question:
So if I have a T-bone steak I can still consider myself a vegetarian?
You can consider yourself a vegetarian seeking a carnivorous experience---or VSC for short
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
Not to be insensitive or crude or anything, but isn't there the slightest chance that some of this might possibly be related to the obsession with the derriere within rap/hip-hop culture? I mean, from "Baby Got Back" years ago, to these soft-porn videos like "Right Thurr" that prominently feature booty-shaking and more booty-shaking...is there not, perhaps, an unhealthy fetish with the posterior as a sexual object rather than as a waste-disposal site?
May not be approprite language on this thread
Hey, don't hang your tired labels on people, man! You're just carnicurious.
Stigma??? Please, has any of these people taken a look at their television lately?
The problem isn't "stigma". It is the fact that homosexuality has been legitimized as "just another lifestyle". Also, I have read other articles along these same lines with young men almost looking for AIDs. It is now a badge of honor. Stigma, my foot.
Actually it has been shown that gays who think they are an exclusive relationship end up with more aids because they don't use precaution and thier "partner" is playing around.
mmmmm... perhaps it should read LMBAO
(Its a joke)
Actually, the problem with sex ed is that it is working too well -- in some schools, the intention is less to prevent pregnancy and disease and more to corrupt their morals.
Unfortunately, River Rat, it isn't just their problem -- it is everyone elses, too. When they get sick, who pays for their medical treatment? If they can't work, who supports them? Ironically enough, the longer those with HIV live, the more time they have to spread the disease around further, which makes the problem even worse.
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