Why is the AIDS virus so racist?

[classical_hero]

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/HIVFactSheets/Epidemic/Inequities.htm

It seems that the AIDS virus is targeting black men more than others, so why is it being so racist?

 

[Joecoolyo]

Poverty and less access to proper medical care?

 

[Quackers]

Easy: CIA.

 

[classical_hero]

Poverty and less access to proper medical care?

So most gays are poor?

The number of new infections among the youngest MSM (aged 13-24) increased 22 percent, from 7,200 infections in 2008 to 8,800 in 2010. Young black MSM continue to bear the heaviest burden, accounting for more than half (55 percent) of new infections among young MSM (4,800). In fact, young black MSM now account for more new infections than any other subgroup by race/ethnicity, age, and sex. There was a 12 percent increase in HIV incidence among MSM overall, from 26,700 in 2008 to 29,800 in 2010.

 

[luiz]

Probably less education translates to less condom use.

 

[illram]

Moderator Action: Is there a non-troll point to this thread? If so get to it.

 

[El_Machinae]

I betcha the strongest correlations will be to poverty, but there might be a cultural thing here, too, which prevents both education and mitigation.

 

[Berzerker]

if the virus likes black people more, the racism is towards other people

or the virus originated in Africa

oh yeah...thats what happened

course it dont help when people are told not to use condoms

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So most gays are poor?

AIDS isn't a "gay disease." Get your head out of the 1980s scaremongering. Even your graphic shows that 1/4 of people with AIDS in the US are straight.

 

[Quackers]

Even I am slightly offended by this thread and a trip to the moral highground is rare for me.

 

[Bootstoots]

I think this is actually a good question, and I don't know the answer offhand. I know HIV originated in Africa, but I don't know why it caused so much more damage to sub-Saharan Africa than to other similarly impoverished nations (e.g. South Asia). As for American blacks, I'd need to see this controlled for income level, but I suspect a huge gap will still remain.

Here's Wikipedia's list of countries by HIV/AIDS rate. I'll assume it's roughly accurate and analyze it by region.

The highest HIV infection rate is Swaziland at 26%. The top 24 countries are all in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a number of countries in the Caribbean with large Afro-Caribbean populations (e.g. Bahamas [#25], Jamaica, Haiti) rank quite high too. The highest proportion in Asia is Thailand at 1.2%; all other Asian countries, regardless of poverty, are below 1%. All Spanish-speaking American countries are below 1%; the worst is Guatemala at 0.8%, which isn't far from the USA at 0.6%.

In Europe, rates are below 1% except in Estonia (1.3%) and Russia (1.1%). I'm not sure what's going on with Estonia, but Russia is seeing its HIV rates rise rapidly due to spectacularly bad policy. Social taboos on homosexuality combined with anti-gay laws, no needle exchange centers or methadone maintenance, high injection drug use rates, and lack of concern about HIV by the health authorities is a perfect storm for an AIDS epidemic.

Overall, though, I can't find a good reason that HIV would affect poor black populations much more than poor populations of other ethnic groups. Also, I don't know why it hit southern Africa the hardest, while West Africa isn't as badly affected. I suspect that there could be something genetic going on that makes African populations, and eastern and southern ones in particular, much more vulnerable. Does anybody know of any good info on this?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I think this is actually a good question, and I don't know the answer offhand. I know HIV originated in Africa, but I don't know why it caused so much more damage to sub-Saharan Africa than to other similarly impoverished nations (e.g. South Asia).

South Asia probably doesn't have religious figures preaching the immorality of using one of the largest and easiest preventives of the spread of HIV.

 

[El_Machinae]

Overall, though, I can't find a good reason that HIV would affect poor black populations much more than poor populations of other ethnic groups.

Devastating epidemics that swept Europe during the Middle Ages seem to have had an unexpected benefit - leaving 10% of today's Europeans resistant to HIV infection.

But epidemics of which disease? Researchers claimed this week that plague helped boost our immunity to HIV, but rival teams are arguing that the credit should go to smallpox.

What is clear is that something has boosted the prevalence of a mutation that helps protect against the virus. The mutation, which affects a protein called CCR5 on the surface of white blood cells, prevents HIV from entering these cells and damaging the immune system.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050307/full/news050307-15.html

That said, I'd still point most fingers at socio-economic factors. We'd see the effect of race once we smooth out the effects due to poverty

 

[de Maistre]

So most gays are poor?

It mostly comes down to the fact that transmission is more likely during anal sex.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070913132930.htm

 

[Bootstoots]

South Asia probably doesn't have religious figures preaching the immorality of using one of the largest and easiest preventives of the spread of HIV.

Opposition to condom use in southern Africa is probably part of the picture, but I'm not convinced it explains much of the discrepancy. HIV rates are under 1% throughout Latin America, even in the poorest countries, despite the fact that much of the population are conservative Catholics.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050307/full/news050307-15.html

That said, I'd still point most fingers at socio-economic factors. We'd see the effect of race once we smooth out the effects due to poverty

I know about that mutation, but that explains only why a minority of northern Europeans are HIV-resistant. It doesn't do anything to explain lower HIV rates among other ethnic groups, and the effect should be fairly minor even in Europe because the mutation isn't common enough to protect very much of the European population.

 

[El_Machinae]

A little bit of immunity goes a long way when it comes to slowing transmissions, but I suspect that the discrepancy is also likely due to our racist sexual habits, I'm more likely to have sex with a white woman, etc. coupled with its point of origin.

That said, the more important question would be what are the different levels of transmission growth rates. The OP can easily be answered through a 'first to market' type of answer.

 

[Bootstoots]

A little bit of immunity goes a long way when it comes to slowing transmissions, but I suspect that the discrepancy is also likely due to our racist sexual habits, I'm more likely to have sex with a white woman, etc. coupled with its point of origin.

That said, the more important question would be what are the different levels of transmission growth rates. The OP can easily be answered through a 'first to market' type of answer.

'First to market' is a better explanation, but it's worth noting that HIV-1 has been present in humans since the early 20th century and in the USA at least since 1969 (Robert Rayford). I would expect prevalence rates to have mostly evened out among geographic regions by now, although with an STD that lasts several years before becoming symptomatic I could see it taking a while to do that. Some suspect that the rise in medical injections (vaccines, antibiotics, malaria drugs, etc.) in sub-Saharan Africa, combined with a lack of sterile needles, contributed as well, which to my mind is also plausible but doesn't explain the magnitude of the discrepancy.

 

[peter grimes]

Jeezus, classical_hero, do you even read your own links?

In part due to a number of social and economic challenges, such as lack of access to care, discrimination, stigma, homophobia, and poverty, people of color have higher rates of HIV infection than whites

 

[useless]

Aids is no more a gay disease than the cold is a straight disease

 

[gay_Aleks]

To be fair, I've never seen a gay sneeze. Like, ever.