Posted on 09/28/2007 6:18:05 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
300 cases are estimated to be in Victoria area
Twenty-five years after AIDS was formally given a name, Texas and the rest of the country still fail to designate the money needed to prevent it and HIV, a Dallas representative said on Wednesday.
It's one reason why infection rates are on the rise, especially among women, Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Democrat, told the Dallas Urban League on Wednesday.
Anchia's remarks reverberated to Victoria, and to an area that's estimated to have more than 300 patients with HIV/AIDS.
"Despite the fact we've had 25 years of experience with this disease, something is wrong with how we're approaching it," Anchia said by phone, just hours after his speech. "Instead of seeing declines in infection rates, we've seen increases."
There are an estimated 1.2 million in the U.S. with HIV/AIDS, Anchia said. Almost 300,000 don't know they have it.
In Victoria, Hispanics are most at risk, a local health department manager said.
An additional 40,000 people a year are newly diagnosed with the illness nationwide, Anchia said. African American male teens and Hispanic females are most impacted.
"It's an issue of significance that's talked about too little," he said.
The representative presides over a Dallas district that is comprised primarily of minorities, a group, he said, that is made up largely of those with low incomes.
Like low-income groups in Victoria, such people often rely on free or subsidized health care.
"Federal funding has been cut, it seems, almost systematically so that fewer people are being tested for AIDS," Anchia said. "The federal dollars for testing serve low-income populations."
Paul Kelliher is the special services manager for the Victoria City-County Health Department. His staff received $114,000 in funding to counsel and test the first 1,500 people who walk through his doors over the next 16 months.
But they always need more funding, he said.
About 100 people in the seven-country Crossroads have been diagnosed HIV/AIDS, and the majority live in Victoria, Kelliher said.
But because others with HIV/AIDS have private insurance, or travel elsewhere for care, it's thought that number could be as great as 300.
Anchia believes this is disturbing, especially considering his remarks were also made on the one-year anniversary of recommendations made by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC hopes to make HIV screening routine and voluntary, a normal part of medical practice.
So, why, after 25 years, hasn't HIV/AIDS testing become routine at doctors' offices and hospitals?
"I don't know," Kelliher said. "To me, it's just good, common sense. It's like going in to have your annual checkup."
Anchia said budgetary constraints, and the stigma of the illness, are part of the problem. Most don't worry about HIV/AIDS, and instead focus on heart health and cancer.
"We have not maintained the same focus on HIV and AIDS awareness and education as we had in the 1980s," he said. "But last year we spent $3.5 billion to tackle cancer over 10 years."
Gabe Semenza is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6519 or gsemenza@vicad.com, or comment on this story here.
“Texas and the rest of the country still fail to designate the money needed to prevent it and HIV,”
The easiest disease in the world to prevent....and it doesn’t cost a dime.
Yes,but it's quite rare...so rare as to be almost unworthy of mention.
People can get AIDS from a blood transfusion.
Although that was once a fairly common method of transmission,today it's even more rare than transmission to health care workers.
A person can go out and mess around ONE TIME and contract AIDS.
So that one bit of "fun" was worth a fatal disease? Are we so animalistic that we can't over-rule our hormones in order to save our lives?
Guess you think people should be celebate Nuns or they deserve whatever happens to them.
Every one of our actions have consequences.Some actions have more serious consequences than others.
Transmission rate to health care workers is negligible...
Seroconversion rates are on the order of <1% with an infected needle stick.
“Women and children (and men who behave like women and children) hardest hit.”
Actually, the political elites in those third world countries have figured out how to milk the bovine American government by calling lots of things "AIDS" that have nothing to do with it. More AIDS = more money.
Meanwhile the "poor families" stay poor because 1) they don't get the money, and 2) outside aid actually prevents the development of local infrastructure.
So that one bit of "fun" was worth a fatal disease?
Of course not.
Going to the beach is not worth catch skin cancer either.
That doesn't give self-righteous pharisees the right to preach the condemnation and prohibition of any compassion towards those who caught a disease due to a lapse in judgement during their life time.
I STILL feel compassion toward those who catch cancer from smoking, heart disease from eating fast food and AIDS from promiscuous behavior.
And I hope God shows me mercy and compassion for my shortcomings.
100’s of years and somethin’ is wrong with the way cancer patients are being treated.
Hepatitis C gets far less money thrown at it and kills as many or more. Anyone who went through the air gun injection gauntlet in the military should get checked.
OMG. This is horrible.
How can this be? Wasn't Clinton the President from 1993-2001? Surely he could have cured AIDS... right?
I’ve gotten the feeling that this is not so. When I was 20 or 21 I came down with mono. This has been about 20 years ago. My family doctor did the blood test and told me I tested positive for mono. I then asked him if I should be tested for aids just in case...since the symptoms to me seemed to be the same.
He stared right into my eyes for a few seconds and said “are you gay?” I said no. He said “have you ever been gay?” I said no. He said “Have you ever experimented with being gay?” I said no. He said “Do you use drugs?” I said no. He said “Do you sleep around alot?” I said no. He said “There’s no reason to be tested then.” I said “But they say it only takes one time unprotected to get it”. He said “no, forget about it. You don’t have it. Quit being a hypochondriac”.
He then went on to explain to me that regular people just don’t get aids. It takes a combination of poor choices to get it. First you need a lifestyle that depletes your immune system, then you need a promiscuous sex life. That means you need to be an alcoholic or drug addict or someone that eats and sleeps irregularly or all of the above and also have intercourse with high risk individuals, like gays or prostitutes or strippers or such. He also told me that every time you get tested for something it goes in your permanent record and your insurance judges you accordingly regardless if you tested positive or negative.
So I never got tested. Apparently he was right since I’m still very much healthy.
AIDS is still killing because some people are still doing the stupid things that will get them infected. I have great sympathy and compassion for the innocent that gets the disease because of another’s duplicity. Not so much for these guys that go to barebacking parties.
Do you still feel compassion for those same people when they accuse you of not working to prevent their infection, have public marches in our biggest cities proclaiming this, infer that this indifference is part of a conspiracy to destroy them, and then STILL insist on their right to CONTINUE in their promiscuous behavior, all the while demanding that YOU foot the exorbitant medical bill for their life-long treatment?
This article is talking about Texas, a developed, educated society in which AIDS awareness is extant in public discussion. The article is written for the Advocate, a pro-gay, activist rag.
Yikes! I had mono too. When I was 18 or 19 years old. I was walking around with it for weeks and didn't know what was wrong with me.
They quarantined me for over a month!
Luckily I had friends bringing me pot etc to make my time in isolation more bearable :)
He then went on to explain to me that regular people just don’t get aids. It takes a combination of poor choices to get it.
With all due respect your doctor is a fool.
All it takes is ONE instance of making a "poor choice" or a lapse in judgment to contract HIV.
It was completely irresponsible of him to deny you a test when you requested it.
People can contract HIV and show NO symptoms for more than 15 years.
George Bush does not have the Constitutional authority to spend taxpayer money on AIDS or any other charity. Charitable giving is a private function, not a government function. The government takes from you by force of arms, penalty of imprisonment or death - that taking oughtn’t to be for merely getting the afflicted to smile for the camera.
That's too bad.
He did it anyway.
Umm Hmmm.
If people kept their business in their pants for a while and avoided drugs, would AIDS continue to increase or would AIDS begin to decrease?
AIDS is not a germ or a virus. AIDS is an infection passed on via bad behavior. People who suffer AIDS have contracted it because they have really poor behavior patterns.
Are you a doctor? Or are you just clairvoyant regarding mamelukesabre's doctor's relationship and familiarity with his patient? Mamelukesabre explained that he was exhaustively interview by his doctor, who had already examined him and diagnosed him with mono.
The point is well made that those who contract AIDS are overwhelmingly promiscuous, having tens or even hundreds of different partners, often anonymous, in short spans of time, and live otherwise very risky lifestyles. Multiple risk factors ARE key to getting the disease.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.