Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Black leaders' vow boosts AIDS fight

Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Black leaders' vow boosts AIDS fight
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
August18, 2006

The statistics are staggering:

Nearly 50 percent of black gay and bisexual men in some of America's cities are estimated to be infected with HIV.

Black women account for nearly two-thirds of the newly infected cases.

Black youth represent nearly 56 percent of the new AIDS cases;

And of the 1 million people who are living with HIV/AIDS, nearly half are black.

Today AIDS represents the greatest threat to African-American progress.

This week at the 16th International AIDS conference in Toronto, leaders of some of the nation's largest black organizations vowed to make the fight against AIDS in the African-American community a national priority by, among other things, getting involved in the effort to increase testing in the black community, appointing a national AIDS director and lobbying Congress for increased federal funding for treatment and care.

The pledge represents the culmination of a nearly 25-year crusade by the Black AIDS Institute, the first black HIV/AIDS think tank dedicated to eradicating the epidemic in the African-American community. A commitment of this magnitude from black civic political and religious leaders is a giant step forward in the battle to end the scourge of AIDS.