Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2003. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Thursday, November 13, 2003
"In many minority and poor communities, people have not truly accepted that they can become infected with AIDS -- that they are not immune," Dr. Richard H. Carmona said in prepared remarks.
He was among speakers at a Thursday night symposium about health problems more prevalent among poor people and minorities. The speeches, sponsored by the New Orleans Department of Health, were at Dillard University's chapel.
Carmona began by describing his childhood as a "poor Latino street kid" and high-school dropout in New York City, and how he moved from there to medicine -- and, as a surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital, saw patients with AIDS before anybody knew what it was.
"Few of us have escaped having a friend or family member ravaged by the disease," he said, noting that blacks and Hispanics in the United States are more likely than whites to get the disease.
"This has little to do with genetics. More than 99 percent of the genetics of everyone, everywhere, are the same," he said. "But it has a lot to do with health literacy."
In Louisiana, blacks make up 32 percent of the population but made up three-quarters of the people diagnosed with HIV or AIDS in 1999, Carmona said.
"Take stock of your own work, your own expertise, your personal convictions, and decide what you can do to change these facts," he said.
Gay advocacy groups have criticized the Bush administration as focusing almost entirely on abstinence to stop the spread of AIDS. They say that has made people in charge of AIDS programs afraid they will lose their money if they do or say something considered inappropriate.
Carmona said the Bush administration spent more than $16 billion last year and has asked for more than $18 billion next year for domestic and international AIDS programs. The Department of Health and Human Services supports a wide range of prevention, testing, treatment and research programs, he said.
He also said the department is using the "ABC" -- "Abstinence, Be faithful, use Condoms" -- approach developed in Uganda.
"We are encouraging people to delay sexual activity. We are reminding those who are already in relationships of the importance of faithfulness and monogamy. And we are encouraging those who engage in high-risk behavior to use condoms consistently and correctly, each and every time they have sex," Carmona said.
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