Editorial
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

Still fighting AIDS

This year marks the 26th anniversary of AIDS. And although there have been recent spikes in certain populations — such as minority men who have sex with men, particularly in urban centers like Philadelphia, New York City and Washington, D.C. — new estimates place global AIDS infection rates at 32.7 million, down from 39.5 million.

United Nations AIDS and the World Health Organization announced the new figures last week, citing previous overestimations and better data-collection methods as the primary reasons for the downturn.

Despite the revised statistics, the two organizations estimated new infections at 2.5 million with an estimated two million deaths in 2007. Grim statistics still.
Even if the epidemic is not as bad as once feared — which translates to fodder for critics of AIDS organizations for purposely overstating numbers for increased funding and AIDS denialists who say there’s no epidemic in impoverished sub-Saharan countries or India, just poverty — two million is still a staggering number of deaths.

As the sexual-minority community was the first to face AIDS head on, the community needs to step back, reevaluate progress and share expertise and experience.

The most puzzling aspect of this disease is that spreading it is entirely preventable. Through education, knowledge and responsible behavior, everyone can prevent spreading it.

That said, everyone must be responsible for his/her own behavior with regard to this. Protection is one’s own responsibility, whether it be protection from infection or protecting others from infection.

Also, knowledge about the disease must be shared. First, the younger generation — those who weren’t yet sexually active in the ’80s and didn’t see their friends, lovers and acquaintances die in large numbers — needs to hear the stories of the epidemic and the lessons learned from it. The older generation needs to bridge the knowledge gap and pass down what they know.

Second, the gay community needs to continue to share its knowledge about fighting the disease with other affected populations. Though those who survived the first wave of the crisis might have activist fatigue, it is imperative to continue to make HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment a priority, both at the grassroots level and as national policy. To that end, the next president must also make fighting AIDS — as well as all of the other problems facing the country — a main concern.