By DANIEL P. JONES
May 5, 2008
Courant.com
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."
Further information about AIDS is available by visiting
www.CrookedRoadStraight.com;www.thebody.com/african_american/movers.html.;
www.cdc.gov/hiv/;
and
www.ctaidscoalition.org.
Copyright © 2008, The Hartford Courant
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