CDC Predicts 1 in 2 Black Gay/Bisexual Men in U.S. Will Become HIV Positive

Harrowing but wonderfully reported piece in the New York Times about America's "hidden HIV epidemic": 

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using the first comprehensive national estimates of lifetime risk of H.I.V. for several key populations, predicted that if current rates continue, one in two African-American gay and bisexual men will be infected with the virus. That compares with a lifetime risk of one in 99 for all Americans and one in 11 for white gay and bisexual men. To offer more perspective: Swaziland, a tiny African nation, has the world’s highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. If gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate would surpass that of this impoverished African nation — and all other nations. The crisis is most acute in Southern states, which hold 37 percent of the country’s population and as of 2014 accounted for 54 percent of all new H.I.V. diagnoses.

Although there is no doubt African Americans have been grossly neglected in the AIDS plague, so many of the hardships described in this article bring me back to the same conclusion, one I have had to remind my friends of all races: If you're HIV positive, TAKE YOUR MEDS. I know you have reasons to not want to that I cannot begin to understand. But I also ache knowing if the people I knew with HIV 25 years ago could have had the opportunity you have, they'd have done anything for the chance to live. And if you do not have access to care, remember the brave men and women of ACT UP and demand it for yourself. There's no reason for HIV to be a death sentence. Honor the generation of people we lost by wiping out AIDS-related deaths.

Read HERE.