NAACP creates HIV/AIDS Manual for Black churches

The NAACP has joined in fight to stop the rise of HIV/AIDS in the Black community. They have created a manual for church leaders to talk about HIV/AIDS with their members.

Here's more:

Shavon Arline-Bradley, the director of health programs for the NAACP, who helped oversee the manual’s creation, said it makes sense for the nation’s largest civil rights organization to be involved in the discussion of HIV and AIDS.

“People look at us as just civil right rights, and what they’re missing is that health is one of the most pressing civil rights issues of our time,” Arline-Bradley said.

Religious leaders who helped with the manual said black churches have been reluctant to talk about the disease. That’s in part because the topic is wrapped up with sex and homosexuality, often taboo topics in the church.

“Sex is not something church people like to talk about. It’s something they like to do,” said the Rev. Joseph Smith, the assistant to the pastor of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., and one of the people who worked on the manual.

This is a good first step.

source

New Report: Black Gay Men are more affected by AIDS than any population in the developed world

This is devastating news. According to the Black AIDS Institute, most Black Gay men are deeply affected the AIDS epidemic.

"Black 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 the Black AIDS Institute. 

"This report not only highlights the gaps and why they still exist after 30 years, but it also provides a blueprint for how to close the gaps and move those most at risk up to the front." Black MSM account for 1 in 500 Americans, but represent nearly 1 in 4 new HIV infections. 

Black MSM are also significantly less likely to be alive three years after being diagnosed with AIDS than are white or Latino MSM. By the age of 25, Black gay men have a 1 in 4 chance of becoming infected with HIV.

This is just a piece of the report, here it is in full from Tlrd. However, this info goes hand in hand with the Frontline special, ENDGAME: AIDS in Black America - you can watch it here

  

"Black 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 the Black AIDS Institute. "This report not only highlights the gaps and why they still exist after 30 years, but it also provides a blueprint for how to close the gaps and move those most at risk up to the front." Black MSM account for 1 in 500 Americans, but represent nearly 1 in 4 new HIV infections. Black MSM are also significantly less likely to be alive three years after being diagnosed with AIDS than are white or Latino MSM. By the age of 25, Black gay men have a 1 in 4 chance of becoming infected with HIV.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-black-gay-men-affected-aids.html#jCp

"Black 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 the Black AIDS Institute. "This report not only highlights the gaps and why they still exist after 30 years, but it also provides a blueprint for how to close the gaps and move those most at risk up to the front." Black MSM account for 1 in 500 Americans, but represent nearly 1 in 4 new HIV infections. Black MSM are also significantly less likely to be alive three years after being diagnosed with AIDS than are white or Latino MSM. By the age of 25, Black gay men have a 1 in 4 chance of becoming infected with HIV.

Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-black-gay-men-affected-aids.html#jCp

Why is Gawker starting up some Mess by trying to find out Who gave Magic Johnson HIV?

Gawker is interesting. They are trying for dig up the person who gave Magic Jackson HIV. This odd quest follows the Frontline special about AIDS and the Black community.

Here's the key piece:

And, still, none of these women who've ever slept with Magic Johnson seemed opportunistic enough to step forward and tell their tale. Neither have the transsexual prostitutes. So once again, the story of Magic's HIV survival takes front and center over how he actually got it. That Frontline documentary will have to wait for another day.

If anyone has any more information about who gave Magic Johnson HIV, please feel free to contact us. I think we can afford to pay more money for this now. Please email me at ajd@gawker.com with information. Thanks.

Really Gawker? I don't really see the point in this. If Magic told the people he was involved with and he and that person are handling their business, why is Gawker trying to stir something up? They are opening the door to foolishness and it's easy to see the drama coming.

This smell like a hot ass mess and Gawker is gladly serving it.

World AIDS Day

From our friends at Center for American Progress:

On this World AIDS Day, as 33 million people worldwide live with HIV, we pause to recognize the magnitude of the HIV/AIDS crisis in our own country and to call for action commensurate with this domestic crisis. Here are a few facts:

* AIDS is the number one killer for black women between the ages of 25 and 34.

* A total of 56,300 people in the United States were newly infected with HIV in 2006, a number 40 percent higher than previously estimated.

* Fifty-three percent of new HIV infections in 2006 occurred in gay and bisexual men of all races and ethnicities.

As a new administration prepares to move to Washington, we urge them to be more than simply aware of the numbers. We want them to move quickly to address the U.S. epidemic.

We must continue the admirable work to fight HIV/AIDS around the world, but we must also seriously address the root causes of our own AIDS epidemic that allow the epidemic and the stigma attached to it—poverty, discrimination, violence, homophobia, and stark racial and gender inequities—to persist and grow here at home.

Read the whole factsheet here.

Tremendous progress has been made, but we must do more.