Miami Herald - Thursday, February 6, 2003
Ernesto Londoño, Herald Writer

From 2 to 7 p.m., local HIV/AIDS agencies will set up shop in the park to conduct free HIV oral tests, distribute literature about sexually transmitted diseases and alert the public that the deadly virus that causes AIDS has settled into predominantly black neighborhoods in Miami.

"A lot of African Americans in Miami-Dade County don't realize that we're in the middle of an epidemic," said Whitney Houston, a program evaluator at MOVERS Inc., an HIV/AIDS prevention and case management agency that attends to blacks in South Florida.

"The community is not taking ownership of the problem," said Houston, 32, who is chairing the Miami chapter of the 3-year-old event. "They still think it's merely a gay problem or a substance abuse problem."

The speed at which HIV has ravaged blacks in the United States in recent years has baffled medical experts.

According to a December 2002 report issued by the Florida Department of Health, blacks account for 51 percent of all reported HIV-positive cases in the United States. According to the same report, blacks in Florida make up 56 percent of the HIV-positive population, although they represent only 18 percent of the total population.

Cumulative data released by the Miami-Dade County Department of Health -- in June 2002 -- shows that blacks in the county accounted for 54 percent of reported HIV-positive cases.

Confronting the epidemic among blacks has proved especially challenging because of the many stigmas attached to the virus, outreach workers say. Prevalent among them is the widespread belief that only gay men get AIDS.

"We're not really fighting the disease, we're fighting ignorance," said state Sen. Frederica Wilson, a staunch supporter of HIV/AIDS outreach workers in Miami Dade County.

There's a stigma with the test itself.

"If someone sees you taking an HIV test, they assume something must be wrong with you," Houston said.

MOVERS tests between 200 and 250 people for HIV each month. Half don't come back for the results. Out of those who do, approximately 5 percent learn that they tested positive, Houston said.

Outreach workers are increasingly focusing on women who are at risk of being exposed to the virus through heterosexual sex, women previously neglected in the realm of HIV/AIDS prevention and advocacy.

Many black men who have a female partner and sometimes have sex with men don't consider themselves bisexual or unfaithful, Houston said.

'We call them 'down-low' brothers," she said. They consider themselves monogamous because they're not cheating on their partner with another woman, she added.

Stamping out the epidemic will require dialogue among blacks that will bring to the foreground subjects that make many uncomfortable.

"To begin talking about HIV, you need to talk about sex, homosexuality, premarital sex and substance abuse," Houston said, adding that it has been tough to enlist black religious leaders into the fight against HIV/AIDS. "Until the black church mobilizes the community, we're going to stagger," she said.

Touchy as the subject may be, Wilson said religious leaders and parents need to start the dialogue. "Bottom line," she said, "it's the only way to avoid becoming another unnecessary statistic."

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