The New York Times Magazine investigates the staggering HIV rates among black gay and bisexual men in a feature article titled: “America’s Hidden H.I.V. Epidemic: Why do America’s black gay and bisexual men have a higher H.I.V. rate than any country in the world?”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if current trends persist, one in two African-American men who have sex with men (MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV. The overall lifetime risk for all Americans is one in 99 and one in 11 for white gay and bisexual men.
Greg Millett, amfAR’s vice president and director of public policy, is widely quoted in the piece, which focuses on Jackson, MS. Jackson has the nation’s highest rate of gay and bisexual men (40%) living with HIV. In a 2016 issue brief, the CDC reported that the South experiences the greatest burden of HIV infection, illness, and deaths in the U.S., accounting for 54% of new diagnoses.
“We are going to eventually end AIDS in the United States, but I fear it’s not going to happen for black MSM,” Millett told The New York Times Magazine. “We have waited too long. With so many black gay men already infected, the horse is already out of the barn.”
Read the article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/magazine/americas-hidden-hiv-epidemic.html?_r=0