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Science Forum Index » Astrology Forum » U.S. AIDS epidemic much worse than once thought,...
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| Homosexuals Destroy Life On Earth! All Homosexuals... |
 Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 11:55 am |
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-aids3-2008aug03,0,3
217153.story
Based on new new testing, the CDC says there are actually about 56,300
new infections a year. Among other findings is that black gay men are at
the greatest risk of infection in the U.S.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 3, 2008
Federal officials have been underestimating the number of new AIDS
infections in the United States by 40% every year for more than a
decade, a finding that indicates the U.S. epidemic is much worse than
was thought, researchers said Saturday.
Using sophisticated testing to identify new infections, the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention concluded that there are about 56,300 new
infections each year -- not the 40,000 figure that has been gospel for
so long.
The new numbers do not mean that the epidemic is growing in this
country, just that researchers have been able to provide more accurate
estimates, said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the CDC's National Center
for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. He said the number
of new infections has remained relatively constant since the late 1990s.
Still, the higher estimates produced a jarring reminder that the United
States, while castigating prevention efforts in the rest of the world,
has not been able to get a firm grip on its own problems.
The new numbers "reveal that the U.S. epidemic is -- and has been --
worse than previously estimated and serve as a wake-up call for all
Americans," said Richard Wolitski, acting director of the division of
HIV/AIDS prevention at the national center.
"With more people living with HIV than ever before, there are more
opportunities for transmission" and the need for prevention has never
been greater, he said.
Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, called
the new figures "a scathing indictment of how profoundly U.S. and CDC
HIV prevention efforts have failed. . . . There is absolutely no good
news here. Without an accurate picture of the epidemic, vastly
underestimated for the last 10 years, we have missed countless
opportunities to intervene with effective public health strategies."
While the epidemic has remained stable for most of this decade, the new
figures confirm suspicions that it has been increasing sharply among gay
men and young African Americans and Latinos That growth that has been
offset by declines among heterosexuals and injection drug users.
Gay men accounted for 53% of all new infections in 2006, the most recent
year for which data is available. Infection rates among blacks were
seven times as high as among whites, while the rate among Latinos was
nearly three times as high.
Fenton said blacks are more disproportionately affected than any other
racial and ethnic group in the country. In fact, he said, gay and
bisexual black men "are one of the most severely impacted groups in the
world."
He attributed the increase in this group to poverty, lack of access to
healthcare, substance abuse, incarceration and the increase in other
sexually transmitted diseases.
"If you are a young, gay black man, the likelihood that you will
encounter HIV is staggeringly high, even if your personal behavior is no
more risky than people in other communities," said Mark McLaurin, a
board member of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project.
The new data "confirm that AIDS in America is a black disease, and has
been neglected for far too long," said Phill Wilson, founder and chief
executive of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles.
The CDC did not release new numbers for prevalence, relying on existing
estimates that about 1 million to 1.1 million Americans are currently
HIV-positive.
But epidemiologist and AIDS expert Philip Alcabes of Hunter College of
the City University of New York noted that the increased incidence
indicates that "there are roughly 225,000 more people living with HIV in
the U.S. than previously suspected."
More than 15,000 Americans die of AIDS each year.
The new data will be formally unveiled Sunday at the International AIDS
Conference in Mexico City and published later this week in the Journal
of the American Medical Assn.
The new estimates are certain to bring calls for increasing spending to
combat the epidemic. Even at the old estimate of 40,000 new infections
per year, nongovernment organizations were calling for the U.S. to spend
at least another $300 million per year for prevention in addition to the
existing $700 million targeted at halting new infections..
"The United States can be proud of having more than tripled its
remarkable commitment to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic," said Dr. Daniel
R. Kuritzkes, director of AIDS research at Brigham and Women's Hospital
in Boston. "These new figures from CDC demonstrate that the domestic
epidemic needs a similar response."
Since the AIDS epidemic began in 1981, the actual incidence in the
United States -- and indeed, in the world -- has been a matter of
controversy. The problem has been that researchers have historically
used "by guess and by golly" techniques to extrapolate overall numbers
from limited data.
In the case of the world numbers, better data have led to a recent
downward revision, a 40% decline to about 2.5 million new infections
each year and a total of about 33 million people living with the virus.
In the past, U.S. data came primarily by extrapolating HIV infections
from the number of newly diagnosed AIDS cases. But as better treatments
have lowered the number of people progressing to full-blown AIDS, those
estimates have become more iffy, experts said.
The new numbers rely on newer testing methods that allow technicians to
determine whether an HIV infection occurred in the last five months or
is an older, long-term infection. More states have also begun reporting
newly diagnosed HIV infections as well new AIDS cases.
"These data, which are based on new laboratory technology developed by
the CDC, provide the clearest picture to date of the U.S. HIV epidemic,
and unfortunately we are far from winning the battle against this
preventable disease," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC.
Using the new estimates for 2006, the team also reanalyzed the
historical data. They concluded that the number of new infections peaked
at about 150,000 per year in the mid-1980s, then declined to about
50,000 per year in the early 1990s.
By the end of that decade, the numbers had climbed back up to the
current level of about 56,000 and have remained roughly constant ever
since, they found. |
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