Biden HIV/AIDS strategy calls racism 'public health threat'

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By AAMER MADHANI

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration in its new HIV/AIDS strategy calls racism “a public health threat” that must be fully recognized as the world looks to end the epidemic.

The strategy released Wednesday on the annual commemoration of World AIDS Day is meant to serve as a framework for how the administration intends to shape its policies, research, programs and planning over the next three years.

The new strategy asserts that over generations “structural inequities have resulted in racial and ethnic health disparities that are severe, far-reaching, and unacceptable.”

New HIV infections in the U.S. fell about 8% from 2015 to 2019, but Black and Latino communities — particularly gay and bisexual men within those groups — continue to be disproportionately affected, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.



President Joe Biden speaks at Dakota County Technical College, in Rosemount, Minn., Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/health-public-health-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-epidemics-cf29c55d71b0577a8aa0e73bb1bb98d1

[TheRealNorth]

1. Public health no longer has the capacity to deal with communicable disease threats...

Don't see how making racism a public health issue is going to help resolve it. It is setting public health up for failure.

[cinematicdiversions]

2. It isn't 1985 nor even 1995. Aids is less of a problem to get nowadays than say Diabetes.

The biggest problem with AIDS is the stigma which honestly is not helped by such special treatment. When I believe Lancet pointed out that you would much rather have AIDS than a more debilitating and deadly disease such as Diabities 2 activities went nuts and attacked them. Problem was all the complaining in the world didn't make them less right.

We should celebrate the downgrading of AIDS to just another condition. Unfortunately to many people have both thier livelihoods and egos wrapped up in the battles of the past to realise it is now ancient history.

Speaking of ancient history blaming racism for unequal infection rates in various populations is certainly that. I don't think we forward a progressive agenda by infantilizing an entire culture.