On August 24, 2006, ABC News broadcast a program about AIDS in America. The facts as presented in the news program are terrifying and vitally important to all Americans. The program asked the question, “Is there an AIDS problem in America?” Most Americans would reply, “No.” to that question. They would be wrong, very wrong!
From 2004 to 2006, 2,000 African-Americans died of AIDS. For African-American women ages 25 to 44, AIDS is the leading cause of death! There are 1,030,900 AIDS victims right here in the United States! Why are these facts being ignored by the government and many health agencies?
One reason is ignorance. The people in power believe that AIDS is a problem in Africa, not in America. They are wrong and ill-informed. Since AIDS is an invisible problem here, many African-American leaders and celebrities go to Africa to try and help AIDS victims, when help is needed here in America as well. Also, there are no national policies or programs in the United States to educate us or control the spread of HIV/AIDS. Local or state control measures are inadequately funded and publicized. Meanwhile, AIDS is spreading, insidiously, but steadily.
AIDS is fueled by lack of testing. AIDS is an infectious disease that can strike anyone. Testing informs us if we have it, but how many people get tested? No one knows! Of those who don’t get tested, how many do they infect before they become aware of what they are giving to others? No one knows! Of those who do get tested and find out they have AIDS, how many keep it a secret and continue to spread it? No one knows! Only recently has the Center for Disease Control come out and recommended that everyone be tested as part of routine medical exams. Are doctors following this directive? No one knows! And testing is still voluntary. How blind can we be?
AIDS is fueled by drug use. Every time drug users share a needle, they risk passing the AIDS virus from one to the other. Needles are shared hundreds, no thousands, of times every day! Dirty needles account for 1/3 of all new AIDS cases. Needle exchanges, exchanging dirty for clean needles, lost federal funding in 1989.
AIDS is fueled by sexual activity. Every time two people of the same sex, or a man and a woman, engage in sexual activity without using a condom, they risk passing the virus from one to the other. This happens thousands, no millions, of times every day! African-American men may have sex with more women than men of other races, because there are only 85 African-American men to every 100 African-American women. While Caucasians and Asians can pair up, if all African-American women want children, some have to share the available men! Thus, if a man has HIV/AIDS, he may spread it to a number of women.
Some homosexuals choose to become HIV positive in order to be free to indulge in sex with anyone, without using protection. In prisons, 40% of inmates have male to male sex and no condoms are allowed. Rough estimates are that proportionately four times as many inmates have HIV as non-inmates. So, if one in 300 non-inmates has AIDS (one million AIDS sufferers in 300 million Americans), then four in each 300 inmates have AIDS. But many more have HIV. These prisoners, most of them, will eventually leave prison and have sex with women, possibly multiple relationships.
How many people do contract HIV each day, each month, each year? No one knows! But, each one of them will eventually have full-blown AIDS. Where are the anti-drug programs? The clean needle programs? The safe sex programs? The programs to reduce infant mortality, violence, and death from illness in the male, African-American population? They are non-existent or limited. Where are the discussions about these issues? The government is failing us by condoning a “Conspiracy of Silence.”
This national lack of information and preventative programs is creating a national crisis –one that hasn’t quite hit our consciousness. But it will! If each of the one million AIDS victims in America infect only two other people before being diagnosed (which can take up to ten years), that means that another two million people will contract HIV, and if they each infect two more, then four million will be infected, and on and on. Julian Bond, of the NAACP, has stated, “There is a failure to lead in the black community.” This applies to the Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian communities as well.
We cannot continue the “Conspiracy of Silence” any longer. AIDS in America is at a crisis point.
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