HIV/AIDS BLACK WOMEN and MEDIA HYPE

Today’s message is based on the Holy Bible Scripture, Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. I was doing some research for a book and had to go and find the statistics on HIV/AIDS and that’s when I learned that most people in the U.S. with the disease, are men and not women like I thought.

So then, I had to ask myself why I thought it was women. The only answer I could come up with was the fact that I have been bombarded with this from all the media hype. In all fairness to them, I don't remember exactly what they put out on the airwaves. What I do remember was something to the affect that there are more African American women with HIV/AIDS than any other group. That is not true and it gives the wrong impression.

Here’s the breakdown from the most recent CDC statistics I found at:
www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/resources/reports/2005report/pdf/2005SurveillanceReport.pdf

*74% of all newly diagnosed cases of HIV/AIDS are MEN
*26% are WOMEN

*Of that 26%, 64% are African American women.


Now, please keep in mind the following:

*While my research is from the CDC I discovered that people were saying the data is flawed for various reasons. However, it was the best reliable information I could find and I chose to use it although I caught two slight variations in the data. One said that the most recent data is up until 2005, and another said 2006. I didn’t have time to figure it out because that was not my purpose.
So, do your own resesarch!

My purpose was to ask the question, if women looked at HIV/AIDS from the point of view that most people who had the disease were men, instead of women, would that have changed how they picked their sex partners, and ultimately how they protected themselves?

The other flaw in the data was that one report said 73% verses another that said 74%. For me and my quest, those were not significant enough differences for me to scrap the information.

Now, back to the statistics and why I looked at them at all:

*80% of all newly diagnosed cases of HIV/AIDS in American came from heterosexual contact.

Yes, men and women having sex.

One of my friends says it can’t be any other way and I agree. It’s just sad for me to think that there may have been a slight possibility if all the facts had been stated, or at least if the most prevalent facts had been stated, things could have been different for black women who caught the disease through heterosexual contact.

After all, you have what you say, and if what you hear affects what you think, and ultimately what you say, well... Would this disease have grown in our community if the media focus had been on men instead of women? Would more women have protected themselves? And why has this turned from a white male gay disease to a black woman disease?

UPDATE: When my FB pal pointed this out I really didn't get it until a couple of days ago, so you know who you are and thanks!!! They said that the stats say what the people taking them want them to say so that they are kept in the most perfect light.

With that under consideration, I looked closer at what they told us and dug a little deeper. I found that although white women only made up about 19% of women with HIV/AIDS it may be because they are getting tested by their private physicians, who in most states do not have to report positive findings to the CDC. Those, (mostly African American) women who are tested at clinics and through facilities that are geared toward people getting tested efficiently, are the ones counted in these statistics, therefore they dominate the results.

So, watch to see how the 2010 results dramatically change the numbers when men and women are close to equal in the amount of diagnosed cases reported, as I mentioned before, due to heterosexual contact. It can't be any other way. Nor, can white women not be a larger part of these numbers. I'm not sure if the percentage of white women vs. black women numbers will change in the stats because of the way they are counted, but now we know the truth about that, don't we.