19th World AIDS Day
Enjoy sex. Get tested. Not necessarily in that order. December 1st is World AIDS Day, y'all. Remember the AIDS? I can't even believe it's December.
"To most casual observers of AIDS, which is to say, most people who haven't known anyone afflicted with HIV, the situation seems to be improving rapidly. While this view is not without foundation when looked at from one (narrow) perspective, the reality is far more complicated and determined by class than most media accounts suggest."The fact is that the spread of HIV and AIDS continues to be a major challenge across the globe, the epidemic is growing and there is concerning evidence that some countries are seeing a resurgence in new infection rates that were previously stable or declining." —The Nation
"The United States has slashed the AIDS death rate among white and wealthy U.S. citizens, but the disease continues to ravage the black community at full force..."African Americans are 13 percent of the U.S. population but are 50 percent of those diagnosed with HIV each year and 50 percent of those who die of AIDS annually, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)...
"...Frank, comprehensive sex education that discusses the necessity of HIV testing and condom use is often absent in U.S. schools, because the federal government will not pay for it. It funds programs for teenagers about how to abstain from sex...
"'If your only opportunity to get comprehensive sex education is in school, then we've kind of missed the mark,' Augustine said.
"...Once on their own, young women in communities where education is poor, jobs are scarce and children have already been born have more to think about than to dwell on the risk of HIV,' she said.
"'There are so many other issues that may take immediate concern,' Augustine said.
"The higher rates of HIV are rooted in racial bias, poverty and the stresses that go with it,' Frazer-Howze said.
"'Race is what's killing us. Race is at the heart of the lack of new therapies, at the heart of the lack of care regarding prevention policies, and at the heart of the poor public health infrastructure,' Fraser-Howze said. 'It's at the heart of society's response in general and the government's response in particular.'
"'The activism that marked the early years of the epidemic in the 1980s is largely absent today.'" —commondreams.org
