New Problems With HIV Risk

Cross posted at Daily Kos.

It is ludicrous to think that, almost 30 years after the AIDS epidemic swept through the country, the U.S. government could still let people at risk for HIV, and people who are newly infected with HIV, fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, this does seem to be the case.

An article in The New York Times calls attention to the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on HIV risk among Americans. The study found that the groups that make up the majority of new HIV cases are gay or bisexual men and blacks. Infections among gay or bisexual white men occurred mostly in their 30s or 40s, whereas cases among gay or bisexual black men occurred mostly in their teens and 20s.

Furthermore, the study showed that these groups are severely at risk for not getting the treatment they need:

In one of the most dismal statistics provided by the centers, researchers said that 80 percent of those found to be newly infected by the disease had not been reached by prevention efforts, which are often sponsored by federal, state and local health officials.

To say that this poses a public health risk barely skims the surface of the problem. People are who at risk for a disease as serious as AIDS should have access to the health care that they need, but sadly, this is not the case.

Those who do not have access to infection prevention services, or basic birth control or safe sex education programs, end up becoming at risk for AIDS.

(By the way, I think we can all think of a certain 17 year old from Alaska who might have benefited from some access to birth control and basic sex education programs...but that's neither here nor there).

These people often live in areas where these services are underfunded (especially when the federal government only promotes abstinence only education programs). And these people are hit again when they don't have access to the necessary treatment medications or programs.

This is a problem of people lacking, or having inadequate, insurance. This is also a problem of our health care services not targeting those who need them most. People need to wake up to these health disparities, as they create public health problems for the whole country. If they don't, things will only get worse.