Bush administration 'slow to respond' to AIDS epidemic

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Blacks represent only 12 percent of the population, but account for 54 percent of all new AIDS cases. Significantly, Black women are more likely to get AIDS from heterosexual activity than White women. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 67 percent of Black women are infected that way, compared to 59 percent of White women. Of newly infected women in the U.S., approximately 64 percent are Black, 18 percent are White and 18 percent are Hispanic. Of newly-infected men, approximately 50 percent are Black, 30 percent are White and 20 percent are Hispanic. That means Black and Latino women contract 82 percent of all AIDS cases among women in the U.S.; and Black and Latino men contract 70 percent of all AIDS cases among men in the U.S. "They [the Bush administration] were slow to respond to the epidemic and therefore, it has got a hold of us," says Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. "Epidemics are difficult to control once they have taken hold and the only way to stop an epidemic is to get in front of it. As a result, HIV/AIDS has become a cycle that Blacks and those in Sub-Sahara Africa can't get out of." In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush announced the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a five-year initiative to provide treatment to two million people by 2008. Now, almost two years later, the Bush administration has completed less than 1.5 percent of its goal. [more]

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