Washington Blade - August 30, 2002
Laura Douglas-Brown

Of the 920 young black "men who have sex with men" in the six-city study, 16 percent tested positive for HIV. Of those, a staggering 93 percent did not know they were infected, according to a study released Aug. 23 in the CDC's Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report.

The numbers are "outrageously high," said CDC epidemiologist Duncan MacKellar, author of the report.

"We have really got to improve the availability of testing services, and we have got to make sure [young black gay men] receive high quality prevention counseling, including assessments and calculations of personal risk," MacKellar said.

Of the young men with unrecognized HIV infection, 71 percent reported they believed they were at low or no risk for contracting the virus.

Yet despite perceiving themselves to be at low risk, many young black gay men in the survey actually engaged in high risk behaviors, MacKellar said.

Of the 920 young black gays surveyed, 77 percent engaged in anal intercourse, while 37 percent said they had unprotected anal intercourse.

And out of the young black men who had HIV but weren't aware of it, 52 percent said they did not use condoms either because they "knew" they or their partners did not have HIV or they believed their partners to be at low risk for infection.

"Compared with their non-infected peers, young [black men who have sex with men] with unrecognized infection were more likely to report engaging in unprotected anal intercourse and not testing previously because of fear of learning their results," the study concluded.

The numbers released last week expand upon preliminary results of the CDC's Young Men's Survey that were released last month at the International Conference on HIV/AIDS in Barcelona.

Conducted from 1994-2000 in seven cities -- Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle -- the Young Men's Survey interviewed young men at gay-identified venues such as bars, organizations, shopping areas and dance clubs.

From 1994 to 1998, interviews focused on young men ages 15-22, expanding to men 22-29 from 1998 to 2000.

Using results from the full age range of 15-29, the findings released in Barcelona showed major racial discrepancies in awareness of HIV infection, although not in actual risk behaviors.

Out of all study participants, 77 percent of those with HIV did not know they were infected: 60 percent of whites, 70 percent of Hispanics and 91 percent of blacks.

Black AIDS activists say numbers confirm what they already knew

The new numbers released this week focus specifically on the 15-22 age group surveyed from 1994 to 1998, and exclude Seattle because the city had few black participants.

But while the Barcelona numbers generated headlines around the country, black AIDS activists reacted to the latest CDC release with little surprise.

"I guess my reaction was, 'And?'" said Phill Wilson, executive director of the African-American AIDS Policy & Training Institute in Los Angeles.

"For those of us doing the work, this is not really news," Wilson said.

"What is news is that we finally now a government agency has confirmed what we have known all along."

The higher rate of unrecognized HIV infection among young black gays, compared to their white counterparts, shows that a lot of outreach remains ineffective, Wilson said.

"Try as we might to pretend otherwise, we are still living in racism, in multiple and totally segregated Americas," he said. "For young black gay men, when the messenger is neither young nor black nor gay -- or all of those -- the messages get dismissed."

Atlanta-based National AIDS Education & Services for Minorities receives about $1.8 million in annual funding from the CDC.

The funds are used to conduct local programs such as testing and counseling, as well as to aid other black AIDS groups around the country in building their organizational structures, according to Connie Smith, NAESM director of social marketing.

But the money may not be enough. This week, NAESM staff were preparing to hand out condoms at Atlanta's Labor Day weekend Black Gay Pride celebration -- and by Tuesday had already had to turn down two organizations that called asking for free condoms to pass out, Smith said.

NAESM also uses mainstream venues like concerts to reach out to those who may not go to a gay-identified agency for counseling or testing, she said.

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