Faced with an alarming incidence of HIV/AIDS among African Americans and Latinos, the nation urgently needs to begin a domestic program to curb the spread of the disease, according to a nationally recognized AIDS policy expert."It's not on the radar screen. There are not enough voices being raised," said Dr. Beny J. Primm, executive director of the Addiction Research and Treatment Corp. in Brooklyn, N.Y.More than 40,000 new cases of HIV/AIDS are reported each year in the U.S., and 60 percent of the people afflicted are African American, he said.Primm, a former federal health official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, was in Hartford Sunday to receive an award from the Greater Hartford chapter of the Links Inc., an organization of professional women of color.
The group held a fundraising luncheon at the Bond Hotel in Hartford to raise awareness about the AIDS problem among African Americans and to raise money for local and international AIDS organizations."Globally, underserved communities are being ravaged by this disease, and the effects on women have been particularly devastating," said Sharon Steinle, the luncheon co-chairwoman. "As a volunteer-based organization focused on the betterment of women and the community, we feel it is our duty to educate others about HIV/AIDS and its prevention."Tina A. Brown, a Courant reporter who covers crime and courts, was the keynote speaker. Her book, "Crooked Road Straight: The Awakening of AIDS Activist Linda Jordan," tells the story of how one Hartford woman became a messenger of hope for families struggling with AIDS.The Links group honored Primm because of his contributions in the fields of substance abuse, domestic violence and AIDS. He was named to the president's commission on the HIV epidemic in 1987. He represented the U.S. at World Health Organization meetings and at an international conference of health ministers on AIDS prevention in London.Primm has focused, in part, on the connection between AIDS and the spread of the disease through intravenous drug use. African Americans were just as badly affected by HIV/AIDS as the white gay community, which had significant access to the press, he said during an interview before the award ceremony. But the disease's spread among African Americans, particularly African American women, has not been given the same kind of attention, Primm said.The numbers of HIV/AIDS cases in some U.S. cities, he said, are reaching the levels health experts are charting in developing areas of the world.In Washington, D.C., for example, one in every 16 people between the ages of 18 and 44 is infected with HIV, Primm said. In Harlem in New York City, he noted, one in seven black men is infected, and in Manhattan, one in 14, between the ages of 34 and 45."The numbers ... are skyrocketing" among African Americans and Latinos, he said, "and are at emergency numbers in African American women."
Is this an elaborate plan to put blacks and latinos in concentration camps? King Alred Plan REX84 much.
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