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# UNITED STATES: AIDS Risk Higher for Gay, Bisexual Black Men: Called Segment of Population Most in Need of Prevention, Treatment Help
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/aids_0722121013/
- Published: 2012-07-22T11:10:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T13:38:34.000Z
- Description: The Black AIDS Institute's report Back of the Line says black men who have sex with men account for one in four new HIV infections while making up one in 500 Americans, and that untreated, they are less likely than white MSM to be alive three years after diagnosis.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Disease, Health News, #vivvo-import

UNITED STATES: AIDS Risk Higher for Gay, Bisexual Black Men: Called Segment of Population Most in Need of Prevention, Treatment Help

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 - http://www.washingtontimes.com/

The Black AIDS Institute released a new report Wednesday called “Back of the Line: The State of AIDS Among Black Gay Men in America 2012.” Black men who have sex with men (MSM) “continue to be first in line when it comes to need, but remain at the back of the line when it comes to assistance,” said Phill Wilson, founder and executive director of BAI. The report calls for stepped-up STD campaigns and HIV testing, prevention and treatment for this population. Black MSM account for one in four new HIV infections, even though they represent only 1 in 500 Americans, the report says. Unless they receive treatment, these men “are significantly less likely to be alive three years after testing HIV-positive” when compared with white MSM. Black MSM “are not simply a fringe group in the fight against HIV/AIDS,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention. “They are, in fact, at the center of the nation’s epidemic, and we cannot achieve an AIDS-free generation, or the end of AIDS in the United States, unless we make major inroads in the fight against HIV among black gay men.” According to Ernest Hopkins, chair of the National Black Gay Men’s Advocacy Coalition and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s director of legislative affairs, black MSM “are no more likely to engage in HIV-related risk behaviors than other MSM.” However, they are associated with risk factors such as early sexual experience, older sex partners, being molested as a child, being incarcerated, growing up in poverty, homelessness and suffering discrimination, he said. \[PNU editor’s note: To access BAI’s report, visit: http://www.blackaids.org/index.php?option=com\_content&view=article&id=1284&Itemid=198.\]

UNITED STATES: FDA Approves New Medication for HIV Prevention Study

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 - http://public.wsj.com/home.html

A new study will test three maraviroc-based regimens to evaluate the HIV drug’s use to prevent infection in healthy people at risk of the virus. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose announcement followed the Food and Drug Administration’s approval Monday of the HIV treatment Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is funding most of the study. Researchers will test maraviroc (Selzentry) in HIV-negative gay and bisexual men, with an aim of 400 participants enrolled in the United States and Puerto Rico. Volunteers in the placebo-controlled trial will be assigned to one of four regimens - three with maraviroc, and one with Truvada - for 48 weeks. Selzentry gained US approval in 2007 and works by inhibiting a pathway HIV uses to infect cells in most newly diagnosed patients. NIH said study leaders want to test other drugs for PrEP due to concerns about possibly serious side effects from Truvada and other previously tested drugs. They also worry about the emergence of drug-resistant viral strains; this has not been widely seen with Selzentry to date. Drugmakers Gilead Sciences Inc. and ViiV Healthcare will donate Truvada and Selzentry, respectively, to the study. Roy M. Gulick, infectious-diseases division chief at Weill Cornell College in New York, will lead the trial.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: City Needs to Improve Efforts to Prevent HIV, Report Says

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 - http://www.washingtonpost.com

According to the advocacy group D.C. Appleseed, the District of Columbia’s recently released HIV statistics are “troubling” because they show slight increases instead of decreases in three key measures. These are the HIV transmission rate, the number of new HIV diagnoses, and the proportion of new diagnoses that progressed from HIV to AIDS in less than 12 months. D.C. Health official Gregory Pappas disputed the group’s conclusions in an e-mail, saying the data were misinterpreted. According to the health department, signs of progress include a decline in the total number of new HIV and AIDS cases. Appleseed’s executive director Walter Smith acknowledged that some statistics have not been reported long enough to show conclusive trends. The prevalence rate of District residents older than 12 living with HIV or AIDS in 2010 was 2.7 percent according to the latest annual report, one of the highest rates for any US city. Among African Americans, who comprise almost half of the city’s population, the rate is 4.3 percent. Although the HIV transmission rate went up from 2009 to 2010, health officials said this increase was due to change in reporting systems to eliminate duplication. Also, the increase in newly diagnosed HIV cases - from 575 in 2009 to 617 in 2010 - was due to expanded testing, according to health officials. Pappas added that the data show that the District is finding people with the disease earlier, leading to more successful treatment. About 52 percent of the 474 newly diagnosed AIDS cases in 2010 were advanced infections, meaning the patients progressed to AIDS within 12 months of their HIV diagnosis, an increase from 50 percent of 506 cases the year before.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Feds: Hospital Tech Could Have Spread Hep C

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 - http://www.ap.org/

A traveling hospital technician accused of infecting 30 people with hepatitis C virus (HCV) at a hospital in New Hampshire had worked in at least six states, US Attorney John Kacavas said Thursday as he announced the man’s arrest. Authorities believe the HCV-infected former Exeter Hospital employee injected the painkiller Fentanyl from syringes intended for patients. They said he then put another liquid, such as saline, into the syringes, which were used later on patients. A search of the suspect’s vehicle turned up an empty Fentanyl syringe and several needles. Authorities declined to name any of the other states in which the suspect worked, but said they were not clustered in any one part of the country. In New Hampshire, he worked at Exeter Hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab from April 2011 through this May before being dismissed. “We are closer to the beginning of our investigation than the end,” Kacavas said. “This serial infector has been contained, and the menace he posed to the public health and safety has been removed.” Officials believe the technician also stole drugs from a hospital operating room in another state. Evidence suggests he was infected since at least June 2010, Kacavas said. New Hampshire is working with CDC, law enforcement, and public health departments in other states where the technician worked, he said. “I’m unaware of such a scheme with such reach,” said Kacavas. “This one has the potential for very far-reaching implications.” So far, 31 people, including the suspect, have tested positive for the same strain of HCV since the Exeter investigation began in late May. The technician was arrested at a hospital in Massachusetts, where he was receiving treatment. When he is well enough, he will be transferred to New Hampshire to face federal drug charges.

GLOBAL: HIV Drug Resistance Creeps Higher: WHO

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 - http://www.afp.com/english/home/

HIV drug resistance in low- and middle-income nations stood at 6.8 percent in 2010, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. WHO released its first-ever report on the issue ahead of next week’s 19th International AIDS Conference. According to WHO AIDS chief Gottfried Hirnschall, “That is a level we sort of expected. It is not dramatic but we clearly need to look very carefully on how this would evolve further.” WHO did not recommend a change in treatment guidelines based on the study. Drug resistance can occur when HIV mutates naturally, when treatment is interrupted, or when patients take medications incorrectly or irregularly. Approximately 8 million people in low- and middle-income countries received antiretroviral drugs last year, up 20 percent from 2010, according to a separate UNAIDS report released Wednesday. High-income countries have higher rates of resistance, from 8 percent to 14 percent. Many of these nations launched widescale treatment programs years ago, often using single- or dual-drug therapies, which can encourage resistance. However, these higher rates have largely leveled off or decreased over time. In 12 of the low- and middle-income countries in the WHO study, health care facilities lost count of up to 38 percent of people who began treatment. When people interrupt or stop treatment, “this not only means that they are themselves more likely to become sick, it also increases the likelihood that drug resistance will emerge and the resistant virus could be transmitted to others,” the report said. WHO called for clinics to monitor for early warning indicators of resistance, including poor treatment adherence, supply breaks, and signs of treatment failure, such as rising viral levels in the blood. Hirnschall added, “Simpler regimens using fixed-dose combinations have made it much easier for people to adhere to antiretroviral treatment, limiting the spread of drug resistance in recent years.”

GLOBAL: Scientists Urge Fresh Push for AIDS Cure

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 - http://www.afp.com/english/home/

International experts on Thursday called for a renewed effort to cure AIDS, publishing a seven-step scientific strategy and introducing it at a press conference in Washington. The US capital is hosting next week’s 19th International AIDS Conference, which is expected to attract 25,000 scientists and advocates from around the world. The strategy focuses on key issues including the reservoirs where HIV hides inside the body, and the few people who seem to have some natural resistance to the virus. The approaches being investigated - including gene therapy, immune treatments, and vaccines - would likely be most effective in combination with each other and antiretroviral therapy (ARVs). Experts have lauded the world’s progress against the disease, with 8 million people in poor countries now receiving ARVs, and AIDS-related mortality falling in much of the world. Even so, 34 million people worldwide are infected, and the cost of their treatment “is overwhelming many organizations and public health systems,” wrote scientists from the International AIDS Society. “It is estimated that for every HIV-infected person who starts antiretroviral therapy, two individuals are newly infected with HIV; this is clearly unsustainable.” “The science has been telling us for some time now that achieving a cure for HIV infection could be a realistic possibility,” said Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, the co-discoverer of HIV and director of the regulation of retroviral infections unit at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. “The time is right to take the opportunity to try and develop an HIV cure.” She added, however, that the search for a cure should not be funded by cutting current prevention and treatment efforts. Among promising developments is the case of Timothy Brown. The US leukemia patient received a stem cell transplant from an HIV-resistant donor and continues to appear free of disease years later. Also of note: the “Visconti cohort,” a group of HIV-infected patients in France who began treatment early and were able to stop it without the infection returning. \[PNU editor’s note: “Towards an HIV Cure: A Global Scientific Strategy” was published in Nature Reviews Immunology (doi:10.1038/nri3262); “Towards a Cure for HIV” was published in Nature (doi:10.1038/487293a).\]

PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia Health Dept. Launches 'She Takes Control' Safe Sex Campaign

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 - http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com

Last April, the Philadelphia Department of Health introduced “Take Control Philly,” a campaign offering free condoms to youths ages 11-19 via mail-order and 160 distribution sites. Only 22 percent of the mail-orders, however, have come from females. PDH’s Dr. Caroline Johnson said the department discovered, chiefly from comments posted to TCP’s Facebook page, that stigma was associated with girls having condoms. To counter this, PDH launched “She Takes Control,” an outreach specifically directed at encouraging teenage girls to carry condoms. Some religious and conservative groups have voiced opposition, but Johnson said, “We don’t believe this promotes promiscuity. We believe this promotes preparedness, and that’s what this is really all about. We’re not encouraging anyone to have sex if they’re not ready.” For more information, visit www.takecontrolphilly.org.

PENNSYLVANIA: Locals Mobilize to D.C. for AIDS Conference

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 - http://www.epgn.com/

ACT UP Philadelphia and the AIDS Fund are among Philadelphia organizations mobilizing people to attend a large-scale demonstration on July 24 during the 19th International AIDS Conference in Washington. About 500 locals are expected to take part, said José DeMarco, an ACT UP member. The “We Can End AIDS” action will include five separate marches, each with a specific theme. Free buses will leave Philadelphia at 7 a.m. Tuesday, departing from Broad and Walnut. Lunch will be provided, and the buses should be back home by 8 p.m. For more information or to register, telephone 267-265-9062, e-mail WCEAPhilly@gmail.com, or visit http://bit.ly/actup2dc.

DELAWARE: Annual AIDS Walk Date and Sites Set, Recruiting Begins

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 - http://www.wnewsj.com/

Organizers have kicked off their drive to recruit participants for the 26th annual AIDS Walk Delaware, which will be held on Sept. 29 on the Riverfront in Wilmington and in Rehoboth Beach at Grove Park. To sign up, visit www.aidswalkdelaware.org. To volunteer, contact Darcy Brasure of AIDS Delaware; telephone 302-652-6776, or e-mail brasure@aidsdelaware.org.

from CDC