HIV Testing: The Magic Bullet in the Fight Against AIDS?

So much has changed in the 25 years since HIV/AIDS first appeared on the landscape as a "gay" disease, wrapped in stigma and prejudice, and carrying an absolute death sentence. Today, people are living long, active lives with HIV; the global reach of the pandemic has gone a long way to remove the gay stigma, and people with power, both political and financial, sufficiently understand the need for dramatic action against the disease.

Bill Gates is spending money on it. George W. Bush talked about it in his last State of the Union address.

"If not mitigated," lamented Congressman Elijah Cummings, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, "the disease will continue to wreak devastation. HIV/AIDS is a pandemic that belongs to each and every one of us, and we must address it societally and holistically."

But it seems that the people who are most affected by the disease are the ones least involved in the fight against it. African Americans account for the largest and fastest-growing demographic group among Americans living with AIDS. Yet, ignorance, denial and recklessness continue to be the hallmarks of African-American behavior when it comes to this disease. In one study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), more than a third (34 percent) of black men who admitted having sex with men, said they also had sex with women, a huge risk factor for spreading HIV. The same study found that 64 percent of the bi-sexual men, who tested positive for HIV, did not know they were infected, compared with 18 percent of Hispanic men and 11 percent of white men.

These dire circumstances are made worse by the fact that only six percent of African-American women in the study admitted that they had sex with a bi-sexual man: Because of that ignorance gap, the virus continues to spread.

In one recent AOL Black Voices poll, more than 67 percent of respondents said they had not had a HIV test in more than a year, and more than half of those, by far the largest group, said they had never had one. The poll also revealed that the lack of testing is not based in the confidence that they are not infected: A majority of respondents, 51 percent, told us that they thought people don’t get tested because they don't want to know their status.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has put the search for an AIDS vaccine among its top priorities. And when, in his 2006 State of the Union address, President Bush said: "A hopeful society acts boldly to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated, and defeated," it was another great leap forward, more evidence that the world now understood what was at stake in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

The bad news about HIV/AIDS lies in what Bush said next: "… More than a million Americans live with HIV, and half of all AIDS cases occur among African Americans. "There is good news about advances in AIDS treatment in general, but we must confront the bad news about the toll HIV/AIDS is having on the world black community.”

According to the CDC, 50 percent of all the new AIDS cases diagnosed in the last five years in the U.S. were among African Americans, who account for less than 13 percent of the population.

Bush has called for new legislation to supply money for testing and treatment and prevention, and in the State of the Union he promised, "We will also lead a nationwide effort, working closely with African American churches and faith-based groups, to deliver rapid HIV tests to millions, end the stigma of AIDS, and come closer to the day when there are no new infections in America."

The frustrating lack of progress has led some to conclude that testing should be the new “Magic Bullet” in the African American fight against AIDS. On the assumption that knowledge is power, there is now an all out effort in the black community for greater testing. Indeed in Washington, D.C. the local health department said it wants to test every resident of the city between the ages 14 and 84. Ambitious, but will it work?

As the 2006 International AIDS Conference begins this weekend in Canada, the issue of blacks and AIDS will be front and center. The Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute will sponsor a series of events in Toronto aimed at addressing the crisis in the black community, from its effect on the African Diaspora in general to its toll on African Americans.

A full-scale mobilization is what it will take believes Black AIDS Institute executive director Phill Wilson. "Black leaders and black churches,” said Wilson, “traditional black civil rights institutions like the NAACP and the Urban League … have to step up and do their part."

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