HIV/AIDS remains one of the most-harrowing global crises of present times, with entire nations doing their best to combat the spread of the disease.

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According to UNAIDS, the highest number of persons living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean was captured on the island of Hispaniola, with 120,000 known cases in Haiti and 62,000 reported in the Dominican Republic.

UNAIDS asserts that much of the spread of disease in the region has been transmitted as a result of unprotected prostitution between men and women, although men having sex with men has also contributed to the numbers.

American anthropologist and Harvard Medical School professor Paul Farmer has written several works associated with HIV/AIDS, including the popular “AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame.” As one of the first doctors to discover the earliest cases of AIDS in Haiti, Farmer was privy to a perspective that the outside world wasn’t.

While Haiti was blamed for the AIDS epidemic, Farmer would learn firsthand that much of Haiti’s infamy was overstated. Due to Farmer’s hands-on exposure and academic expertise, he was able to conclude that Haiti’s pandemic flourished as a result of poverty, globalization, illness, and the country’s dependency on industry outside its reach. Farmer further expounds on this theory in another book, entitled “Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues.”

With females living with HIV/AIDS making up 59 percent of the cases in Belize, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, HIV numbers continue to be the highest between men who have sex with men. The spike in female numbers point to sex workers and unprotected sex, which is added to the number of new infections.

Drug use in Jamaica and a spike of numbers of infected prisoners, especially in St. Lucia and Guyana, also play their part in bumping up the number of cases. The UNAIDS report supports Farmer’s theories about poverty being linked to citizens receiving the necessary care in the prevention of spreading HIV/AIDS. In poorer regions in Jamaica, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, AIDS numbers tended to trend higher.

In order to assist in the prevention and care of persons living with HIV/AIDS, $1.3 billion has been donated to the cause. Global donors, such as the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the U.S.-sponsored President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has provided support to the region and its countries. While funds and donations have poured in, UNAIDS still states that not enough is being spent on prevention, although numbers have shown nominal improvement.

The 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster has also compounded HIV/AIDS problem, as workers have had to contend with the country’s 1.3-million misplaced citizens and the social ills that residents who lived in temporary camps faced. Rape, sexual assault, and unprotected sex were issues that plagued the campsites, and a lack of law enforcement and other lacking safeguards left many vulnerable.

Organizations and countries looking to eliminate the pandemic are focusing their efforts on prevention, obtaining adequate funding, at-risk populations, bridging gaps of spread between populations, and reaching out via sound political leadership. Smaller organizations are formulating their own response to the epidemic, with group Code Red, taking a feminist stand by focusing on sex work, sexual education, and health.

While the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the fight against the disease seemingly has a primary focus on Africa and the United States, those who are concerned with the plight of the Caribbean nations dealing with this crisis need to get more involved. It is apparent that the island paradises that are enjoyed by foreign visitors the world over should get more than what they’ve been presented with thus far.

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But what you may not know about Africa is that the number of people newly infected with HIV in 2009 fell from 2.2 million to 1.8 million, according to recent statistics published by United Nations AIDS. Moreover, the continent has many activists from all walks of life who are helping their countries fight stereotypes and taboos about the disease.

One of the most-prominent activists is soccer star Samual Eto’o (pictured) of Cameroon. He heads the 2012 African World Cup campaign “CAN Without AIDS,” which uses soccer (or football for those outside of the United States) as a platform to raise AIDS and HIV awareness among Africans across the continent. Check out one of his ads below.

Samual Eto’o Campaign Ad

Recently, Eto’o held a press conference in Libreville, capital of Gabon, where he challenged his fellow Africans to take control of themselves so that they and the continent could better take on HIV/AIDS, according to goal.com.

Eto’o called on African youths to shun ‘destructive pleasures of the moment’ and focus on their future, as he did by modelling himself on compatriot Roger Milla during his early days.

We are using football to convey this message because Africans love football and it has become a gathering point. We want to bring this as an alert that HIV-Aids is not only a threat to the sport in Africa but a danger for the youths and development on the continent, Eto’o said.

That soccer is being used to promote this message shouldn’t be surprising. South Africa hosted a very successful 2010 World Cup, which showed the rest of the world that Africa is much more than its HIV and AIDS issues. Moreover, Africa’s GDP is expected to rise some 6 percent in 2012, so governments across the continent realize that they need healthy citizens to take advantage of this economic upsurge.

Another influential African taking the lead on HIV/AIDS is South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, who has three wives. After sparking controversy with his suggestion that one can reduce the risk of of HIV/AIDS by showering after sex, he released test results showing he was HIV negative.

Whether Eto’o's efforts can influence the sexual behavior of  young Africans remains to be seen, but one thing is clear, he is one of many Africans who is making themselves seen and heard in Africa’s HIV/AIDS fight.

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—————-

Maria Davis

Age: 51

City of Residence: New York City

Why she is a local hero: After contracting HIV from a man whom she thought she was going to marry, Maria Davis decided to spread the word about the disease in her community.

Ask Davis how she contracted HIV and she’ll tell you that she “didn’t love herself enough.” A concert promoter working with the likes of Jay-Z and Lil Kim, Davis only found out she had the HIV virus when she went to get a medical workup to get life insurance for her children. Davis admits she didn’t think she could contract the disease.

“It was a disease of gay, white men or drug users,” Davis says. “I didn’t’ fit the profile of any of those things.”

Her HIV results said otherwise. After accepting the disease and her role in contracting it, Davis decided that she needed to fight back.

“This is a preventable disease,” she adds. “People need to know that.”

Now Davis is a peer counselor at the AIDS organization Harlem United. She counsels others with the disease and works to prevent other people from contracting it. Her most recent role is as the face of a new campaign from AIDS research organization AmfAR. The campaign is designed to put a face on the everyday people that advances in AIDS research will benefit.

“Just because HIV/AIDS is now considered a chronic disease doesn’t mean we can forget about it,” Davis told DNA Info. “I’m not going to let people forget about it.”

Despite having neuropathy, which makes her legs feel numb, Davis participated in her third New York City Marathon to raise money for Harlem United last fall. She walks most of the route and it takes her more than seven hours, but Davis says she wants to show people that they are empowered not only to live a fruitful life with the disease but to make the decision not to contract it.

When she’s not advocating for those with HIV/AIDS, Davis spends time raising money to help those in New York City’s homeless shelters.

“This is me,” she says. “This is what I have to do.”

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Davis, a 29-year-old man, was sentenced on 14 counts of felonious assault in this case, after it was determined that at least a dozen of his partners were not made aware of his HIV status.

Davis claims that he is a sex addict and that his addiction was also driven by losing his dream of becoming a pro-wrestler after testing positive for HIV:

Drugs and alcohol are terrible, but sex is something everybody wants. I am not a monster, he said.

Davis tells the world that he is not a monster, but he certainly acted like one.  His decision to be so terribly irresponsible with his body has ruined countless lives and made our society a little less safe.  What’s most frightening about this “monster” is that there are thousands of other monsters in our society, some of whom have no idea that they are walking bio-weapons of mass destruction.

Quite a few men, especially those who are athletes and entertainers, have been taught by media to pride themselves on how many women they can sleep with.  When our kids are bombarded with lyrics like “I wish I could F*ck every girl in the world,” (thanks to Lil Wayne) they are filled with a warped sense of masculinity that teaches them that you are to have sex from any attractive woman who offers it.  If women are attracted to you, your rolodex is never too full.

Unfortunately, many women become so hypnotized by the amount of “swag” that a man has, how well he dresses, what he’s driving, or how good he looks, that they don’t take the time to find out if he might send her to the morgue.

Most of us know men who’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of women and haven’t been to the doctor in years.  For some, sex is the perpetual hunger that can never be fully satiated.  While most women grow up accustomed to regular doctor’s visits for pap smears and other routine check-ups, many men do not. Therefore, Davis is actually unique in that he even knows his HIV status in the first place.

Given that he lost his job as a wrestler because of his status, chances are that he was forced to take a test that he would not have gotten otherwise.  How many other Andre Davis-like men are out there who never took the test and will never be prosecuted for spreading HIV because they had no idea of their status?

So perhaps an honest reflection on our sexual decisions might be called for in the strange times in which we live.  Is Andre Davis a monster? I’m not sure.  What is most frightening is that he might not be a monster, abnormality, or uniquely malevolent human being – he might actually just be a regular guy.  I’m sure Davis has quite a few friends just like him.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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A 2007 study from the World Health Organization found that male circumcision can reduce the HIV infection rate from women to men by about 60 percent. The report concluded that if 80 percent of males in 14 countries were circumcised by 2015, the effort would result in 4 million less HIV infections at a savings of $20 billion. Since countries in Africa have high infection rates and low levels of circumcisions, organizations such as WHO and UNAIDS prioritized populations in that region.

However, the success rate has been low with only 5 percent of WHO’s goal reached in Kenya. Several factors have made it difficult including there being few qualified surgeons, governments like Uganda’s not being on board, and men not willing to go through with the surgery.

But Circ MedTech’s CEO Tzameret Fuerst says PrePex could change all that. The device has three rings that are placed on the genitals to stop the flow of blood to the foreskin. The procedure can be administered by nurses, takes about a minute and is painless. After one week, the skin becomes “like fingernails” and can be removed with blunt, safe scissors.

Fuerst compares the difference between conventional circumcision and what the procedure’s like using PrePex.

“One message is come get circumcised—the procedure entails injected anesthesia, bleeding, a surgical procedure and post-healing time,” she says, “versus telling a man: ‘You’re going to go through something that is virtually painless, there’s no blood, there are no needles, and you can go back to work.’ Now think of the impact on uptake.”

The innovation is patent pending and no country has bought the device yet. (The device is not for sale in the US.) Rwanda has approved it after clinical trials and its health minister Anges Binagwaho has written in the Washington Post that it can be a great thing for her country. And Zimbabwe has begun testing.

Still, PrePex is just one method. HIV prevention counseling has to go hand-in-hand with any effort to fight the disease.

Do you think African countries should give PrePex a chance?

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It was most widespread in the 1990s as foster care agencies sought treatments for their HIV-infected children that weren’t yet available in the marketplace.

Read more at BlackLikeMoi.com

“And I know the government administered AIDS/ So I guess we just pray like the minister say.”

Kanye’s not the only black person who believes the Feds are behind this devastating disease.

The Rand Corporation reported in a study that, of the 500 black participants they surveyed on whether AIDS was man-made, half answered yes.

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Back in 1995, Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, Minister of Health for Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, called for a congressional investigation on the subject.

“We know from the Congressional Record that money was appropriated for the creation of artificial biological agents to defeat the human immune system. This took place in July of 1969. Ten million dollars was allocated to the U.S. Army. So… let there be hearings to uncover the files,” CNN quoted Dr. Muhammad.

Here is a rundown of a few theories that have kept the AIDS conspiracy merry-go-round spinning:

1) God Is Punishing You

The late Jerry Falwell not only felt that gays and lesbians were responsible for 9/11, he argued that AIDS was God’s punishment for them as well. “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals,” Fallwell said, “it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

2) Laboratory Accident

British journalist Edward Hooper claimed in his book, The River, that Dr. Hilary Koprowski of the Wistar Research Institute unintentionally created AIDS by using chimp kidneys to produce an oral polio vaccine, according to a 2008 Slate article.

3) The Government Is Trying To Kill Black People

A more recent claim that AIDS was government-sponsored came from the pulpit of President Barack Obama’s former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. During a sermon, Wright blasted the U.S. government for “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.”

4) What Virus?

In 1996, University of California-Berkeley professor Peter Duesberg claimed that AIDS is connected to recreational drug use and that HIV is harmless.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki believed him. Mbeki made international headlines ten years ago questioning whether HIV causes AIDS along with a number of other controversial remarks.

Does Any Of This Matter?

Whether or not the government manufactured AIDS, the illness is ravaging the black community in the most devastating fashion.

Blacks make up only 12% of the U.S. population, but account for 44 percent of new HIV infections, according to a recent study by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. The study also reports that black women account for 57 percent of new HIV infections and that their incident rate is 15 times more than that of white women. Black teens between the ages of 13-19 account for 68 percent of new AIDS cases despite only making up 17 percent of the teen population.

Given these devastating numbers, are conspiracy theories even relevant? Do you feel conspiracy theories harm efforts to fight HIV-AIDS in the black community?

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During his remarks, Obama stressed that the U.S. has quite a way to go in fighting the disease.  He especially focused on how the disease affects the African American community.

“The rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but it’s not going down here in America,” he said. “There are communities in this country being devastated still by this disease. When new infections among young, black, gay men increase by nearly 50 percent in three years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter.”

During his remarks, Obama gave some props to former President George W. Bush for his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program, “which focuses on prevention, treatment and support programs in 15 countries hit hardest by the AIDS pandemic, 12 of them in Africa,” according to the Associate Press.

“That program — more ambitious than even leading advocates thought was possible at the time — has saved thousands and thousands and thousands of lives, spurred international action, and laid the foundation for a comprehensive global plan that will impact the lives of millions,” Obama said. “And we are proud that we have the opportunity to carry that work forward.”

Do you feel the U.S. government is doing enough to end HIV-AIDS? Was President Obama justified in praising former President George W. Bush on his AIDS efforts while he was in office?

Give us your thoughts.

Read the rest of the story at The Daily Beast.

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The AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania filed the lawsuit for the unidentified boy. Attorney Ronda Goldfein says her client requires no special accommodations.

In a statement released to WCAU-TV, school officials acknowledge the boy was denied admission for safety reasons. The school says it must protect the safety of the other 1,850 students already enrolled.
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Founded in 1909 by chocolate maker Milton Hershey, the school educates low-income and socially disadvantaged students for free with the support of The Hershey Co.
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Now he is on a mission to right his wrongs and be an advocate for the AIDS prevention and other living with the disease.

Loop 21 reports:

It would take five years and countless hours of filming to help capture Brawner’s story and on World AIDS Day in New York City, Brawner, Brown and producer Yvonne M. Shirley will show an extended trailer of 25 to LIFE, a documentary based on Brawner’s journey.

Honest and raw, the film lays bare agony of the events surrounding Brawner’s diagnosis as a toddler — and his decision to disclose his status as an adult.

“We try not to villify him, and at the same time we don’t want to make him a martyr, either,” Brown says of his treatment of Brawner in 25 to LIFE. “This is not some type of an apology piece. We just tried to present a piece where viewers can answer some of the tough questions about Will’s life within themselves. And I think it kind of humanizes the experience of being HIV positive or having AIDS. You will wish that Will made some better choices. And seeing him work through some of these issues, you’ll feel for him, too.

Read the full story on Loop 21

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Standard practice has been to have patients put off the expensive pill regimen – which can cost up to $15,000 a year in the United States – until the immune system weakens.

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But Health Commissioner Thomas Farley said recent studies have shown that the benefits of early treatment, combined with education and testing, appears to be a promising strategy for countering the epidemic.

“I’m more optimistic now than I’ve ever been about this epidemic that we can drive our new rates down to zero or close to it – eventually. I don’t know how soon. But I’m very optimistic of the direction that it’s going to take the epidemic to,” Farley said in an interview Wednesday.

More than 110,000 people in New York City are infected with HIV, more than in any other U.S. city and about 75 percent of all cases in the state. San Francisco, which had more than 18,000 people living with HIV, is believed to be the only other major city to have made a similar recommendation in 2010.

City health officials said the new recommendation could initially help about 3,000 people get on medications. About 66,000 New Yorkers living with HIV that the Health Department tracks are being effectively treated with AIDS drugs, they said. But they said it was difficult to estimate how many people would eventually need the medications.

Some doctors agree with the Department of Health that it is time to update the guidelines for initiating AIDS drug treatment.

“The New York City health department is a little bit ahead of the curve. In my opinion, the rest of the country will follow and I think it will be pretty quick,” said Dr. Michael Saag of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and past chairman of the HIV Medicine Association.

The standard measure of the CD4 count – a way to measure the strength of the immune system – is an outdated trigger for therapy, a relic from research on early antiretroviral drugs, Saag said.

“It’s anachronism. It’s old school. It’s yesterday,” Saag said. “I agree completely with the New York City health department.”

Dr. Joel Gallant of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and vice chair of the HIV Medicine Association also agrees with the New York recommendation for offering early treatment. He recommends early treatment for his own patients.

“Nobody I know who is an HIV expert feels that it’s a bad idea to treat HIV at high CD4 counts from a medical or scientific standpoint,” Gallant said. “If there are objections, they’d usually be based on cost or feasibility.”

Saag said the cost questions are very important because a brand-name drug can retail for $1,200 to $1,600 per month.

“For sure, they’re very expensive drugs and we should be careful about that,” he said, though he added that the medications are going generic so costs should come down.

City health officials said they anticipated that the cost for expanding the use of AIDS drugs would be covered by private insurance or by the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, a $270 million program for the uninsured or underinsured that is partially funded through federal dollars. The health officials said they expect the benefits over the long term would far outweigh the initial costs because there would be fewer hospitalizations and new HIV cases.

“There will be some increasing costs over the short term,” said Farley. “But over the long term, it’s absolutely the right thing for the epidemic.”

HIV experts are split about whether early therapy should be recommended or optional. Besides the high costs, the pills have side effects from nausea to liver damage. Patients unwilling to take them religiously for life could develop drug resistance.

A panel that recently updated U.S. guidelines was divided evenly, with half favoring starting therapy early for everyone and half regarding an early start as elective.

But there’s growing evidence that untreated HIV can lead to cancers and heart disease. What’s more, antiretroviral drugs are safer, have fewer side effects and work better than they did in the past. New research also indicates that people live better, healthier lives and their partners do as well when they get early treatment.

The new research cited by the city’s Health Department in making its recommendations includes a nine-nation study whose preliminary results were announced earlier this year and showed that earlier treatment meant patients were 96 percent less likely to spread the virus to their uninfected partners.

Dr. Moupali Das, the director of research at the San Francisco Department of Health HIV Prevention Section, said its surveillance data indicated that physicians were treating their HIV patients early even before the city recommended doing so. She said the average amount of time from diagnosis to having no virus in the blood went from 32 months in 2004 to eight months in 2008.

“That reflects that the newer medications are more potent and efficacious, and the doctors were likely initiating them earlier,” she said.

She said they are currently analyzing what has happened since the recommendations went into effect. But, anecdotally, she said that there has been a change among patients seeking treatment. “It’s changed the dialogue and empowered our patient population,” she said.

Public health experts predict the guidelines for starting AIDS drugs treatment will shift toward a clear recommendation for early treatment.

But New York City’s health commissioner said officials there could not wait to respond.

“What we’re doing here is we’re making a really clear and unequivocal statement that we think this is good for the health of the patient, good for the health of the entire population, good for the response to the epidemic,” Farley said.

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The treated mice in the study appeared to have 100 percent protection against HIV. That doesn’t mean the strategy will work in people. But several experts were impressed.

“This is a very important paper (about) a very creative idea,” says the government’s AIDS chief, Dr. Anthony Fauci. He didn’t take part in the research.

The new study involved injecting mice with a protective gene, an idea that’s been tested against HIV infection in animals for a decade.

In the nearly 30 years since HIV was identified, scientists haven’t been able to find a vaccine that is broadly effective. One boost came in 2009, when a large study in Thailand showed that an experimental vaccine protected about a third of recipients against infection. That’s not good enough for general use, but researchers are now trying to improve it.

Researchers reported the new results in mice online Wednesday in the journal Nature. They hope to test the approach in people in a couple of years. Another research team reported similar success in monkeys in 2009 and hopes to start human tests even sooner.

A traditional vaccine works by masquerading as a germ, training the body’s immune system to build specific defenses in case the real germ shows up. Those defenses are generally antibodies, which are proteins in the blood that have just the right shape to grab onto parts of an invading virus. Once that happens, the virus can’t establish a lasting infection and is cleared from the body.

Scientists have identified antibodies that neutralize a wide range of HIV strains, but they’ve had trouble getting people’s immune systems to create those antibodies with a vaccine.

The gene-injection goal is straightforward. Rather than trying to train a person’s immune system to devise effective antibodies, why not just give a person genes for those proteins? The genes can slip into cells in muscle or some other tissue and make them pump out lots of the antibodies.

The mouse work is reported by David Baltimore and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology.

Ordinary mice don’t get infected with HIV, which attacks the immune system. So the research used mice that carried human immune system cells.

Baltimore’s team used a harmless virus to carry an antibody gene and injected it once into a leg muscle. The researchers found that the mice made high levels of the antibody for more than a year. The results suggest lifetime protection for a mouse, Baltimore said, although “we simply don’t know what will happen in people.”

Even when the mice were injected with very high doses of HIV, they didn’t show the loss of certain blood cells that results from HIV infection. Baltimore said THAT researchers couldn’t completely rule out the possibility of infection, but that their tests found no evidence of it. He said a few hundred mice appeared to be protected.

The work was funded by the federal government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Baltimore said his lab has filed for patents.

“I think it’s great,” said Dr. Philip R. Johnson of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who reported similar results in monkeys in 2009. “It provides additional evidence this is a concept that’s worth moving forward.”

Johnson said he has discussed doing a human trial with federal regulators and is preparing an application for permission to go ahead. If all goes well, a preliminary experiment to test the safety of the approach might begin in about a year, he said. Baltimore said his group is also planning human experiments that he hopes will start in the next couple years.

Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, cautioned that mouse results don’t always pan out in human studies. He also said both the gene approach and standard vaccines should be pursued because it’s not clear which will work better.

“We’re still in the discovery stage of both of them,” he said.

Dr. Harris Goldstein, director of the Einstein-Montefiore Center for AIDS Research in New York, who has done similar research in mice, called Baltimore’s result a significant advance if it works in humans because it shows a single injection produces high levels of antibodies for a long time.

It might lead not only to preventing infection, but also a treatment for infected people, he said. If it allowed people with HIV to stop or reduce their medications even for temporary periods, they could avoid the inconvenience and side effects of the drugs, he said.

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Preachers were caught on tape advising HIV-positive people to stop taking their medication because they had been “healed by God.”

As many as six individuals have died after churches instructed them to discontinue their medication, according to the Sky News investigation.

One of the victims, Emmanuel, stopped taking his medicine a year ago after being instructed by a pastor at his church in London.

The pastor told him that once god forgave him, “the disease will definitely go.”

But now Emmanuel believes he may have passed his HIV infection to his boyfriend.

“I feel guilty, if I’m the one who passed it onto him I’m feeling guilty. Yeah, very much guilty,” he told Sky News.

The campaign is sponsored by the Iris House, a community-based organization that meets the needs of women, families and at-risk communities infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. The goal of the heterosexual male targeted campaign is to increase awareness, shared sexual responsibility, openness and honesty, according to the agency.

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Though the 8-year-old agency was established to provide care for HIV-infected minority women, in October 2010, the Iris House decided to turn its focus to what Executive Director Ingrid Floyd called a “forgotten population.” Floyd said most HIV/AIDS programs target women or gay and bisexual men, but that the agency sought to “fill that gap,” by tailoring a program for black heterosexual men.

The campaign, dubbed “Keep It 100” is named after a commonly used phrase in the black community, which means to be honest.

The idea of targeting heterosexual men came about, after the agency analyzed data on their female clientele, which revealed that 90 percent of them said that they contracted HIV/AIDS from their male partners. Floyd said the Iris House decided to analyze the data after they noticed a pattern in its clientele and the national rates of women infected by men.

“We decided in 2008 when completing our strategic plan that we had to begin providing services for the men in their lives and in the community since no other places were targeting heterosexual men,” Floyd said.

“We wanted to figure out a way to engage the men in the prevention education so that we don’t just put the responsibility on the women.”

The black and Latino populations account for the highest rate of new infections per 100,000 people in the United States, according to 2009 federal data from the Centers for Disease Control. The center also cites New York as the state with the highest number of AIDS diagnoses. Among racial and gender demographics, black men accounted for the highest new infection cases, according to Centers for Disease Control data.

Central Harlem and East Harlem, where the Iris House does most of its outreach, have the second and third highest infection rate in the city, according to 2008 data from the New York City HIV/AIDS Annual Surveillance Statistics.

Patrick Wilson, a professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods like Central Harlem and East Harlem experience high rates of HIV/AIDS infections because of a prevalence in poverty, and socioeconomic disadvantages.

“People have less access to health care and HIV testing,” he said. Wilson said many members of the black community don’t have a desire to get tested because there is still a stigma of promiscuity that is lobbed with HIV/AIDS.

Nevertheless, Wilson cautioned that the high concentration of HIV infections among black, gay and bisexual men remains an epidemic in the community.

Among black men who have sex with men, there were more new HIV infections (52%) among young black men who have sex with men aged 13–29 years, than any other racial or ethnic age group, according to CDC data.

As a result, Wilson says, the Iris House should focus on black men in general, not just heterosexual men.

“Sexual identity is very fluid,” he said. “One can be gay today, and heterosexual tomorrow.”

Wilson said non-heterosexuality remains a stigma in the community, which may cause men not to disclose their sexual identity. For this reason, Wilson questions the effectiveness such a campaign could have, for the long run, in the community.

However, the Iris House also offers a program geared toward black men who have sex with men called d-Up!, a Centers for Disease Control approved intervention program. According to the agency’s website, d-Up! is designed to change social norms and perceptions of black MSM regarding condom use.

Men, both heterosexual and homosexual, report more negative attitudes about condom use than do women, according to data from the American Psychological Association.

Floyd said the Keep It 100 campaign and the agency’s other outreach programs stress the importance of partners engaging in healthy conversations about sex and their HIV status, “before going to the bedroom.”

“It’s the only way to make sure that you are being responsible for yourself,” Floyd said. “That’s the message we want people to get.”

Men who come to the Iris House are encouraged to participate in group workshops, where they are shown videos that encourage them to avoid unprotected sex and be honest about their sexual history with their partners. The agency also provides one-on-one counseling and free testing. Floyd said the Iris House does community outreach, and supplies free condoms to local barbershops, beauty shops, and local businesses.

The agency is also using technology as a means of marketing its Keep It 100 campaign. Around the city, the campaign posters feature small bar codes that can lead smart phone users to the campaign’s website. From there, Floyd says, they can get additional information about the program and its services.

The Iris House was established in 1993, and was named after an AIDS advocate who died of the disease in the 1980s. Until recently, the agency exclusively focused on infected women and their families. Within a year, Floyd said the Iris House hopes to have 75 to 100 men participating in the Keep It 100 one-on-one and group workshops.

The Keep It 100 campaign is funded by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.

Researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle conducted a study on 3,790 women in Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. They found that the women using hormonal contraceptives were twice as likely to become infected with HIV.

The risk was increased among those using injectable and oral contraceptives.

It’s possible that biological changes, such as changes to the cells that line the vagina or cervix, could possibly influence susceptibility to HIV, the researchers said.

“Recommendations regarding contraceptive use, particularly emphasizing the importance of dual protection with condoms and the use of non-hormonal and low-dose hormonal methods for women with or at risk for HIV-1, are urgently needed”, said study researcher Renee Heffron, also of the University of Washington.

Read more at MSNBC.com

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The term Christian Ignorance Virus was coined by Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama’s former church.

The Grio Reports:

What started as a support group for its members, with an initial ministry membership of less than 100, quickly grew. They turned their focus on the community, going out to educate and support any and everyone. Soon they started working with Provident Hospital and also started holding an annual Youth Summit.

“We wanted to do more than just talk about the problem from the pulpit; we wanted to lead by example,” Johnson said. “Just last month Pastor Moss talked to be about getting test at least four times a year from the pulpit and getting the community involved.”

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The moment was a turning point in the history of the virus, bringing HIV to the forefront of the American consciousness and opening African-American eyes to what was then known at the time as a “gay/white” disease.

Twenty years later, Johnson sits down with L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke, admitting he is now healthy and how he regrets leaving the NBA.

Read more at Colorlines.

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According to a new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Black gay and bisexual men of all ages account for 73 percent of new infections among Black men, while the number of young Black gay and bisexual men under the age of 30 increased by 50 percent in only four years.

When considering all of this information, the challenge before us is clear: we cannot end the Black AIDS epidemic without confronting HIV among Black gay men, and the stigma and homophobia that allows HIV to flourish in our communities.

Read more at The Grio.

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According to the study, Black physicians are embarrassed to address the social stigmas that Blacks bring into the office of the disease, so they often  refrain from addressing the realities and the impact that HIV and AIDS is having on the community.

The survey found that three of the top five barriers to routine testing cited by African-American physicians related to social stigma. Specifically, physicians are concerned that patients may perceive the recommendation to test as accusatory or judgmental (57 percent); would not want to be identified as HIV positive and would worry about people finding out (48 percent); and would be offended due to the stigma associated with HIV (43 percent).

Read more at BET.com

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One study, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focused on men and women in Botswana. The other study, conducted by a researcher at The University of Washington and backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, involved heterosexual couples in Uganda and Kenya.

Among those believed to be taking the pills regularly, just four people on Truvada became infected with HIV in comparison with 19 on the fake pill. That means Truvada takers cut their risk of infection by approximately 78%.

Read more at the New York Daily News.

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Go get tested!

Today is National HIV Testing Day, and with the African-American community hardest hit by this disease, we implore all to go get tested.

The president spoke this weekend on the importance of this day.

“National HIV Testing Day reminds each of us to do our part in fighting HIV/AIDS and get tested,” President Obama said in a White House statement. His administration released a National HIV/AIDS Strategy last July, with the goals of reducing new HIV infections, increasing access to care, and reducing HIV-related health disparities.

“One in five Americans living with HIV is not aware of their infection and this research highlights the imperative of making sure people know their HIV status and getting those who do have HIV into care,” the President said.

African-Americans account for 60 percent of tests and 70 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the study done by the CDC. Black people are also 1.6 times more likely to test positive for HIV than whites or Hispanics.

Read here to learn about HIV/AIDS testing efforts in DC

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Recently, I was asked to promote National HIV Testing Day (June 27th) and came across the startling statistics regarding Black women. So of course, I got to thinking: Why are our numbers continuously rising when the overall numbers of those infected have remained somewhat steady, if not declining? And despite what most people would have you to believe, Black women don’t face the greatest risk  just from ‘down-low brothers;’ the biggest danger of all is “US.”

Sex is one of the most basic, natural functions for human beings. And of course, the force by which we continue to reproduce. But the reality is, most of us are afraid to even discuss our true feelings or desires on the subject. Sadly, many times we think that in order to get a man or keep a man, you have to have sex – which couldn’t be further from the truth. We often give in when we really don’t want to, and tragically, even get convinced to partake in unprotected sex because we believe it will make our partner happy – and oh yeah, “it feels better.”

Let’s be brutally honest here, how many of us just don’t enjoy sex at all? If you think that’s a stretch, keep this in mind: earlier this year, Fitness Magazine surveyed 2,400 women to see how many would give up sex for a full year in order to be skinny, and the answer was a remarkable 51 percent.

When it comes to pleasure and what works for us, Black women (and women in general for that matter) often keep quiet. Instead of discussing what pleases us, we tolerate unsatisfactory sexual experiences, which can eventually lead to dangerous outcomes.  If we don’t speak up, we may look for pleasure elsewhere, thus putting our partner and the partner of the person we are cheating with at risk for all sorts of STDs. Miscommunication – or lack of communication – not only leads to bad relationships, but it can also lead to risky behavior.

And finally, in an era when women do virtually everything men do, it should come as no surprise that we have begun to behave in a manner that’s in line with what we believe is traditional male thinking. Whether we are too busy to maintain a relationship, or simply enjoy the idea of having multiple partners and options, many of us are behaving in the same fashion that we claim men have for decades. But because we are still more likely to compromise, we aren’t protecting ourselves the way men do, and thus are on the losing end of the stick more than our male counterparts.

Every 35 minutes, a woman tests positive for HIV in this country, and Black women account for some 66% of all of these new cases. Those are some down right scary stats. If we want to play with the big boys, it’s time we as strong, intelligent, independent women start speaking up, share our likes and dislikes, stop blaming down-low brothers, begin protecting ourselves each and every time, remain honest to ourselves and our partners, and know that it’s ok to just say ‘no thanks’.  That is, after all, the only way we can truly stop this deadly disease and save ourselves – and the next generation.

P.S. – the down-low brothers (AND sisters) are not off the hook … I’ll address that at a later time …

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a private partnership with the MAC cosmetics company that will expand medical and emergency support services for rape survivors in South Africa, where over 3 million people live with HIV/AIDS.

Black Voices reports:

Clinton and the cosmetics company pledged the commitment of $2 million to diminish the AIDS epidemic in South Africa over the next two years through the launch of new TCC centers and the extension of operating hours at existing clinics.

The TCC Network was launched by the South African governments with aide from the United States government to bring services, including HIV/AIDS testing, prevention, and treatment programs to women and children who are victims of sexual violence. The MAC Foundation will leverage $18.9 million that the U.S. government has committed to the program already.

The MAC AIDS FUND was founded in 1994 with the goal of supporting people living with HIV and AIDS around the world, and commits 100 percent of the sale price of Viva Glam Lipstick and Lipgloss to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and education.

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“Really a lot of women, African-American women, don’t really know what their partners are doing or their partners are keeping certain aspects of their life shielded from their female partners. [...]

If a person who doesn’t know they’re infected, who is completely asymptomatic, which a lot of people are in the early stages of disease, they may go about with their regular behaviors,” said Bashar. “They’re putting tremendous amount of risk to the general public.”

And of course, also betraying someone’s trust during one of life’s most vulnerable moments. A startling 60% of HIV-positive black women in Massachusetts caught the disease from partners who either did not know their HIV status, or knew but failed to inform them. Comparatively, the leading factor for HIV infection for white women is IV drugs.

This revelation underscores how important it is for black women to insist that their partners use condoms. Recently Will.i.am called women who keep condoms at home “tacky.” Is he trying to get people killed? Clearly, such women are powerfully self-protective and intelligent.

African-American women are being affected in legions by AIDS, contracting HIV at a rate only second to that of black men. Because of this, it is important that we take control of our health by using condoms every time we are intimate with the opposite sex, regardless of what other people think. No amount of social or sexual pressure is worth your life.

Women, do you use protection every time? If not, why?

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JOHANNESBURG — A U.N.-led alliance on Wednesday urged young people to change behaviors that increase their risk of contracting AIDS, and called on their elders to provide leadership, education and support.

Their joint report released Wednesday, “Opportunity in Crisis: Preventing HIV from early adolescence to young adulthood,” says that around the world some 2,500 young people are infected daily with HIV, and that in the year 2009 people between the ages of 15 and 24 accounted for 41 percent of new HIV infections among all those over the age of 15.

The organizations that released the report urge communities, leaders and young people to act to stop sex with multiple partners or with older partners, whose prevalence of HIV is statistically higher.

That behavior, the groups say, is “fueling HIV transmission among young people, particularly young women.”

The alliance includes U.N. agencies for children, AIDS, education, health and women, the International Labor Organization and the World Bank.

“We must protect the second decade of life, so that the journey from childhood to adulthood is not derailed by HIV — a journey that is especially fraught for girls and young women,” U.N. children’s agency director Anthony Lake said in a statement Wednesday.

The report said poverty and unemployment have to be addressed because they can push young people into prostitution. They also cited concerns about discrimination against women, which can keep women from refusing unwanted sex, negotiating safe sex, or objecting to a partner’s infidelity. It also says many teens lack access to basic information about HIV and how to prevent AIDS, and to testing services.

But the groups pointed to strategies that can help, such as a campaign in Tanzania to ridicule the idea of men pursuing younger women.

“Existing prevention strategies have had limited success, so we have to look for creative new approaches to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” Mahmoud Mohieldin, the World Bank’s managing director, said in a statement. “These must address people’s very basic needs for education, economic security, inclusion, dignity, and human rights. These issues are particularly crucial when we consider the health and well-being of adolescent girls, mothers and children, and socially marginalized groups.”

“I’m cured of HIV. I had HIV but I don’t anymore,” he said, using words that many in the scientific community are cautiously clinging to.

Scientists said Brown received stem cells from a donor who was immune to HIV. In fact, about one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Some researchers think the immunity gene goes back to the Great Plague: people who survived the plague passed their immunity down and their heirs have it today.

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Candice Wiggins has already made history with professional women’s basketball, but that’s only her half of her story.

In high school she was listed as the best shooting guard in the nation and won a scholarship to Stanford to play volleyball and basketball, an amazing feat, but not the whole story.

She chose Stanford over Duke. Now that’s the whole story. (Just kidding.)

She became the all-time leading scorer in Stanford women’s basketball history. And she continued to make history with her professional career with the WNBA team, the Minnesota Lynx.

But that’s still not the whole story.

What separates her from other athletes is her commitment to something bigger than herself. As a 3-year-old little girl, she didn’t understand why her father, Alan Wiggins, a professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles and then the San Diego Padres, had to be away from her so often. She later learned that her father was in the hospital, dying from a disease that in the early ‘90s, no one wanted to talk about. As a heavy drug user he had contracted AIDS during a time when medicine and awareness were scarce and stigma ran rampant. Some of the same issues prevail today concerning the disease.

Because of that enduring stigma, Wiggins works tirelessly telling her story around the world and being the face of the non-profit organization, Until There’s a Cure (www.until.org <http://www.until.org/> ). The organization raises awareness and funds to combat AIDS. To date, the organization has raised $9 million for vaccine development, care services, and youth education.

Wiggins took some time to speak to newsone.com before the WNBA season begins:

Q. How did you get started as an AIDS activist and what are you doing now with the organization now?

A. We’re working with a lot of non-profit organizations right now. There has been huge change since my father was alive with awareness of AIDS. The most recent thing I’ve done is with Greater than AIDS, the campaign I did with my mom. I do speaking engagements telling my story. Until There’s A Cure—a non-profit organization that sells bracelets to help fund education and prevention, I am working with them. My life is about eradicating the stigma of HIV/AIDS because to me that’s where the problem lies.

Q. During the time period your father contracted the disease there was a different perception about AIDS….

A. The thing that shocks me is that the face of AIDS has changed from the early ’90s. It used to be drug users, homosexual males, and now it’s the leading cause of death for African American women in a certain age range, I think 5-36-years-old. It shows how AIDS/HIV has spread to different communities and a lot of it has to do with a lack of awareness, a lack of education, and a stigma. I highly recommend watching the documentary produced by Sheila Johnson who owns the Mystics, The Other City, about the AIDS rate in Washington DC and how it rivals African countries. It’s eye-opening.

Q. Have you ever worked with her [Sheila Johnson] as an AIDS activist?

A. I met her at the screening of the The Other City in San Francisco, she’s happy about the work I am doing. And I’m happy she was able to make such a great documentary about what HIV/AIDS is about now. It’s not just an international issue, it’s also a domestic one targeting African American women.

Q. How old were you when you found out your father had contracted the disease?

A. I have a vague memory of it, the time of his death was the beginning of my life. I vaguely remember it being a tumultuous time, I was 6, 7, 8, and I was reading articles about my Dad and trying to figure out what AIDS was. It was a vague thing until 7th grade science class where we learned about AIDS and I starting learning about the technical aspects of the disease. In the 9th grade I participated in my first AIDS walk. I felt like I don’t have to be afraid of it, I felt a lot of comfort and solace to be with people who weren’t afraid to talk about it.

Q. What age were you when your dad died?

A. I was 3 about to turn 4. He was in and out of the hospital. I was sheltered from him, no one wanted his kids to see him like he was. He was 97 pounds when he died. At that time in the 90s, there wasn’t the medicine like they have now. It was scary, I remember being scared.

Q. Had Magic Johnson come out by then?

A. Magic Johnson had really saved our family’s optimism. He taught our family how to live. He came out with it after my father died. I remember seeing as a kid this campaign he was in with McDonalds. I saw it in a kid’s magazine. He was just so brave and so strong. We felt like we weren’t alone. I actually got a chance to speak to Magic at the NBA All-Star game. He knew who I was and he knew what I was doing, he gave me a big hug. It meant the world to me.

What I learned through my work is that a lot of people are living with HIV and that’s important for people to understand that too. In the ‘90s it wasn’t really a healthy time to have HIV, psychologically healthy, that is. Nowadays people need to know that it doesn’t make it a death sentence.

Q. But what about people that cant afford the medicine?

A. Yes, there are a lot of people who can’t afford it. But there’s also physical health and mental health—being strong-willed. I met a lot of people who are HIV positive and a lot of them have touched my life because they were so happy, they cherish life, every minute of it.

Q. Your father played professional sports?

A. Yeah, he played baseball for the San Diego Padres. In 1984, he led the Padres to their first World Series. He’s a legendary baseball player. He went to same high school as Jackie Robinson and that’s who he wanted to be like. My mom used to tell me he had been playing baseball since he was a little boy and growing up as an African American boy in the ‘60s and ‘70s he had a Jackie Robinson baseball card that was signed by him. My mom said that was his most prized possession. I think a lot of people don’t realize how much he was influenced by Jackie Robinson and even followed in his footsteps. He even got drafted to the Dodgers.

Q. Do they did tell you how he contracted the disease?

A. My father was a heavy drug user. He came from a poor background. When he grew up drug use was very prevalent. He ran with gangs and drugs and his upbringing was in the inner-city. He goes to play baseball and he’s making millions and all of these troubles befall him. I can see without having that support, that solid upbringing like I had, what could happen. I was very privileged–I live in the house that he bought in San Diego, I went to private school. I knew my Dad’s story. I wanted to go to Stanford. Unfortunately no one saved him because he didn’t save himself.

Q. How long did he live with the disease before he passed?

A. I don’t think very long, the needle use goes straight to the bloodstream. I think he deteriorated fast. It was like ‘89, ‘90, and not much was known about it except if you have it, you’re pretty much dead. So I think that was what happened.

Q. In your AIDS outreach do you deal with needle exchange?

A. I was actually invited to the White House in 2009–that was the first time they invited anyone to the White house to talk about HIV/AIDS in the country and that was about putting pressure on the government to allow for needle exchange programs in the DC area and trying to lift the ban because there was a government ban. The exchange program really helps to lower the numbers.

I am really terrified of drugs, but I do feel like I have to be brave. I’m always thinking a surrender/exhange program—that maybe that could have saved my father. I don’t know. I think a lot of people turn their backs on drug users. But that’s my father. You have to have some compassion to want someone to be better, to get help, rather than turn a blind eye, because that’s how the rates get higher.

Q. What is happening in June, that’s a pivotal month for AIDS awareness, right?

A. Yes, National Testing Day is June 25th. I want to do a video to show people about getting tested. I hope that more African American women come out since this is the leading cause of death for African American women.

Q. Was your father vocal about having AIDS?

A. From what I remember and what my mom told me, he didn’t come out. I read an article in 1992 in Reader’s Digest and that article really hurt, a lot of ugly things were said and I don’t think that helped the situation.

Q. What do you think he would say about your success as an athlete and your work as an AIDS activist if he were alive today?

A. I think he would feel proud that he didn’t die in vain. And I really feel like my father, he has all of his life in me. I feel like everything that was positive about him transferred into me. I look a lot like him, I play like him, I’m built him, I talk like him–everyone tells me this. I feel like he’s been reborn in me and I’m proud of that. I always wanted to say, if he could leave his mark on the world he left me. It shows that life does goes on. I hope he’s looking down on me and is proud and that he knows he actually served a bigger purpose.

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Many H.I.V.  patients suffer kidney damage, either from medications or the virus itself. With a growing need for organ donors, some doctors hope that the infected patients can serve as donors for other infected patients, as well as non-infected patients potentially in the future.

“We would like to see as many safe transplants occurring as possible, and there’s no reason why H.I.V.-positive recipients shouldn’t get transplants and that H.I.V.-positive donors can’t be used,” said Dr. Matthew Kuehnert, who directs the C.D.C.’s Office of Blood, Organ and Other Tissue Safety.

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For years now, the 45-year-old New Yorker has believed that for all its vastness, the Atlantic Ocean is ripe for conquest; That a lone man pulling a pair of oars can shove off an African beach and slowly, steadily, row partway around the globe to New York harbor.

This is an idea he has refused to relinquish, despite repeated failure. When the 24-foot wooden rowboat he built by hand for his first trans-Atlantic attempt in 2006 sank just hours into his trip from Senegal, he went out and got another, built by a professional. When that boat’s drinking water systems failed two weeks into his 2nd attempt in 2009, necessitating a rescue, he chalked it up to bad luck, rather than fate telling him “No.”

Now, he is trying again.

Mooney departed from a marina in the Cape Verdean islands at about 7:30 a.m. Saturday, according to the local port captain. He pointed his bow west toward the Caribbean, and if his luck holds, and his latest boat remains afloat, and his back stays strong, and he doesn’t go mad with loneliness, he plans to land in Brooklyn in six to eight months.

Speaking by telephone from the island of Sao Vicente on Thursday, Mooney said he was ready for the nearly 5,000-mile trip. He had already begun sleeping on his oceangoing rowboat to get his sea legs.

“We did some test runs. All the electrical systems are OK,” he said. “I’m enjoying these last minutes.”

Succeed or fail, there will be no fourth attempt, he vowed.

“That was the deal with my wife,” said Mooney, who has been on leave from his job as a publicist at the ASA Institute of Business and Computer Technology. “She said, ‘Victor, this is it. Write it down. This is a family contract.”

It is, of course, possible to row across the Atlantic. George Harbo and Gabriel Samuelsen of Norway did it first it 1896, traveling from Manhattan to La Havre, France. An Englishman named John Fairfax became the first to do it solo in 1969, sculling from the Canary Islands to Florida’s Hollywood Beach in 180 days. The Ocean Rowing Society lists a handful of successful attempts each year, most involving trips from the coast of Africa to the Caribbean.

Mooney plans an even more ambitious route. After reaching the Caribbean, he intends to turn north and row up the U.S. coastline to New York, nearly doubling the length of his trip.

That’s the plan, anyway. Mooney said that as “a sensible sea person,” he realizes the trip will take a tremendous amount of effort and he may have to put ashore short of his goal. Merely crossing to an island like Antigua from Cape Verde is a journey of 2,500 miles.

“I would prefer to go all the way to New York,” he said. “I’m fully stocked and prepared to go the whole way.”

The boat, he said, is a sound one, although its history, like his, is tinged with failure.

Originally called the Caliste, the 21-footer was left adrift by its original owner, the Frenchman Charlie Girard, after he abandoned an attempt to row from Cape Cod in Massachusetts to France. Girard was only 150 miles offshore when he gave up. A Canadian tugboat recovered the vessel. Girard later told the Cape Cod Times he couldn’t bear the psychological strain of the voyage. He had been at sea for just 10 days.

Girard donated the boat to Mooney, who rechristened it the Never Give Up – a sappy name, but one fitting its owner.

Mooney, a religious man who comes across as heartbreakingly earnest, says he is rowing to raise awareness of AIDS and HIV, and hopes that “for every stroke I take, someone gets tested.”

One of his brothers died of AIDS in 1983. Mooney is rowing in his memory. A second brother is HIV positive.

A native of Freeport, on New York’s Long Island, who learned to row as a kid and has been making long journeys in area waters for years, Mooney has now been raising money, building boats, training and talking about HIV almost continuously since 2003.

At sea, he will be alone in every sense. Supporters will not be following behind him in a motorized craft. He has satellite phones on board capable of transmitting data, but he won’t be spending his time blogging or chatting with friends back home. He said reporters wouldn’t be able to reach him once he left Cape Verde.

“I’m preparing for the isolation,” he said.

As for the danger of an ocean crossing, Mooney said he is confident he has the best equipment. Powered by a wind turbine and solar panels, his rowboat has two radar systems, two phone systems, a carbon fiber hull, three devices to make fresh water (a broken desalination machine is what doomed his 2009 expedition), and a hold stuffed with oats, organic food and 200 bottles of Coca Cola. It is also self-righting, in case he capsizes in a squall.

“I remain humble and cautious,” he added.

Indeed. A few days ago, Mooney sent out a tweet saying he still needed to raise the last $100 needed to pay for supplies and a tow out of the harbor.

People interested in following his voyage can check his position, tracked by global positioning system, at http://www.goreechallenge.com .

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The film based on Canadian writer Allan Stratton’s 2004 novel “Chanda’s Secrets,” is set in impoverished, rural South Africa, a world of prejudice and superstition surrounding AIDS. Twelve-year-old Chanda shows maturity and courage beyond her years when the disease strikes her family.

Khomotso Manyaka, 15, who played the lead character, said she hopes young viewers will leave her movie with the message that “they don’t have to keep secrets.”

“HIV is not something that you can hide,” said her co-star, 14-year-old Keaoboka Makanyane. “You have to talk about it so that you can get help.”

Both teens come from the same small town in rural northeastern South Africa and are in their first year as boarders at South Africa’s equivalent of New York’s “Fame” school. They earned full scholarships to the prestigious National School of the Arts in Johannesburg on the strength of their performances in the film.

The two teens, who had never before been out of the country, also have had a chance to see the world since the movie’s release, going to film festivals in Europe and the Middle East.

On Tuesday, they gathered with fellow students to watch an Internet feed of the Academy Award nominations announced from the United States.

The movie’s director, Oliver Schmitz, praised both young, first-time actresses.

“I’m proud to have gotten this far,” Schmitz said in a telephone interview from his base in Germany. “I’m proud of the movie.”

Years of South African government inaction have been reversed recently, but the legacy of official denial and the disease’s continuing fierce stigma have helped leave the country with more people living with HIV than anywhere else in the world.

Some 5.7 million of 50 million people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and South Africa has more than 1 million children orphaned by AIDS, many left to take responsibility for younger siblings.

Another South African movie with an AIDS theme, director Darrell James Roodt’s “Yesterday,” was a best foreign film nominee in 2005.

When I was in high school, this Armenia kid named Nicky ran up on me one day and said, “Hey Byers! You know how you get five Black men to stop raping a white woman?”

I shrugged.

“Toss them a basketball!” he said.

“That joke is dumb,” I said after a pause. “It should have been ten Black men. That way, they could have had two teams.”

Such has always been my response to racial humor. It need only funny. When it’s not, then I’m offended.

So when I first heard that Cipha Sounds, co-host for Hot 97 in New York’s Cipha Sounds & Rosenberg Show joked that he didn’t have to worry about catching AIDS because he didn’t date Haitian women, my first thought was how many people are old enough to get that joke?

It was in the 80s, when AIDS was first emerging, that the Big Lie about AIDS being a disease only capable of spreading between homosexual men and Haitians first started to circulate.

Of course, we know now, that everybody can get AIDS.

My concern with Cipha and his stupid joke was simply that many of his morning show’s listeners are probably kids on their way to school and wouldn’t remember the first precepts about AIDS and would therefore, not understand the reference.

As for the joke itself, well…

One of the most interesting things about living in America is that nothing indicates a group’s place on the socioeconomic and psychological totem pole better than it’s ability to take a joke.

I know for a fact that the reason that I’m able to get away with writing so many hateful, racist and inflammatory things about white people is because any white man, if reading along, would dismiss me immediately as some Spook suffering from “sour grapes”.

And I admire white people for that.

I’ll also let you in on a little Newsone secret: the posts that have historically had the largest number of user comments have involved white people using the N-Word.

So get over it, my Haitians brothers and sisters. You should be madder that Cipha Sounds’ joke was corny than because he aimed it at you.

But if you need a little help to feel better, allow me to offer you this:

Ya’ll are all uptight because ya’ll got dissed on the radio by a Puerto Rican?

Wow.

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DJ Cipha Sounds suspended for Haitian HIV comment

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TV One’s Director of Digital Media, James Hill joins Roland Martin on the set of Washington Watch for this week’s edition of ‘Web Watch.’

This week Roland and Hill take on the alleged HIV-AIDS breakthrough, Michael Vick wanting to eventually own another dog and Usher getting kicked in the face during a performance.

WATCH:

Below is a piece contributed to CNN by the African actor.

Africa — As an African man, I have always felt a sense of responsibility, not only toward my country, but to those living on the continent who face the daily challenges that poverty and disease bring.

As a new father, I have acquired an acute sensitivity to the overwhelming challenges parents in this region face in creating a future full of hope and free of disease for their children. AIDS, in particular, has ravaged the continent.

A recent report from the United Nations says that AIDS will kill half of all 15-year-olds in Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa by 2012 if something is not done soon. Nearly 14 million children have been orphaned by AIDS, and each day, nearly 1,000 children are born HIV positive — starting life already carrying the burden of this disease.

Read more at CNN

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World AIDS Day

December 1st marks World AIDS Day 2010 all around the world. People famous and not so famous are making the most out of this day to raise awareness and celebrate loved ones who are dealing with this disease, lost the battle and highlighting positive developments with research and prevention.

You can also be a part of this important day. Fast Company’s Jenara Herenberg shares 5 ways you can get involved.

1. One Love Project

Rena Greifinger from the Harvard School of Public Health launched the innovative One Love Project to help teens born with or affected by HIV to keep their lives on track. In its second year of running now, Greifinger has been able to gather a small group of Boston-based HIV-positive teens each year to spend a few days together in a stigma-free environment, share experiences and resources, and strategize ways to support other teens with HIV. Check out ways to get involved or simply donate.

Related Article:  Reality Check: HIV/AIDS On the Rise In The African-American Community

2. Alicia Keys’ Keep a Child Alive Campaign

Alicia Keys started the Keep a Child Alive Foundation in order to fight poverty and disease, with a focus on children. She and a number of celebrities have teamed up for a “digital life sacrifice” experiment where the likes of Lady Gaga and Kim Kardashian will not sign onto any social network, including Twitter, until fans collectively donate $1 million dollars. All you have to do to participate is text the name of your favorite participating celebrity to 90999 and $10 dollars will be instantly donated to the cause.

Related Article:   Alicia Keys Goes Offline For Charity

3. Partners in Health

The organization founded by Paul Farmer and Jim Kim has a history of innovating around a number of health issues, particularly in Haiti, where they got their start. When the Haiti earthquake crisis erupted, PIH was recognized as one of the safest and most reliable organizations to donate to. Still operating in Haiti, where HIV/AIDS is a strong focus of their work, donations are welcome on their website.

Click here for #4 & #5 and more information

Today is World Aids Day and we want you to take action to tackle HIV prejudice and to protect yourself and others from HIV transmission. Make sure you get tested and know your status.

See black celebrities who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS on HelloBeautiful.Com

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World AIDS Day

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HARARE, Zimbabwe — The United States launched a program in Zimbabwe Wednesday to encourage HIV testing, with the U.S. ambassador, local musicians, broadcast personalities and soccer stars taking tests to mark the occasion.

Alexio Kawara, one of the nation’s most popular musicians, said Zimbabwean celebrities are leading the U.S. program launched on World AIDS day to dispel fears over knowing one’s HIV status.

U.S. Ambassador Charles A. Ray said “wiser older folk” like him are not always listened to, but he hoped the young, popular celebrities should set example that others would follow.

After the tests Wednesday, all the results were kept personal and confidential, a core principle of the program.

The U.S. is the biggest contributor to modern AIDS treatment centers across Zimbabwe that have tested and counseled 2 million people.

Kawara told attendees at a testing center in downtown Harare that AIDS deaths were common in the music industry.

Stardom made “our temptations higher,” he said. “Every lady wants to say something to you.”

Munyaradzi Chidzonga, 24, an actor and filmmaker who is widely known in Zimbabwe as the runner-up in the last “Big Brother Africa” television reality show, said many of his friends and contemporaries hid their fears over AIDS “behind closed doors.”

Health workers also say there is still a stigma attached to HIV infection in some communities, compounded by ignorance over the effectiveness of antiretroviral medication.

“We need to be open,” Chidzonga said. “Knowing your status one way or the other gives you the power to control your life. Let’s perpetuate this and change the way people think.”

Official figures put Zimbabwe’s HIV infection rate at about 13 percent of the overall population, but more than 20 percent in the 13-30 age group.

Soccer star Desmond Maringwa of the top-of-the-league Dynamos Football Club has played the game for 15 years since he was a child.

After receiving counseling from social workers about the implications of the test, he and the others waited 15 minutes for the result of the analysis of their blood, taken from a light jab in the thumb.

“Hey, that was a long 15 minutes, but we’ve got to get the fans to come and do this,” he said.

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The tracklist for Lil’ Wayne’s new EP, I’m Not A Human Being, was revealed today, and we couldn’t help but notice that the first track on the album was called “Gonorrhea.”  That inspired us to go back and listen to some our favorite hip-hop records that dealt with STD’s.

Read more at The Urban Daily

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World AIDS Day

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Atlanta — For the past several years, Hip-Hop artists across the country have held events that encouraged safe sex and the importance of continuously being tested for HIV/AIDS.

Artists like Plies, Twista, Yung Problemz, Yung L.A., Keith Murray, Ludacris, Jamie Foxx, Bun B., Gorilla Zoe, Common and countless others have campaigned in the Hip-Hop community to help stop the spread of the deadly disease amongst teenagers and young adults.

The rapper’s have used many tactics, including giving away free tickets to concerts to encourage testing, created PSA’s, and viral campaigns on social networks to get their fans tested for HIV/AIDS.

The Center for Disease Control provided AllHipHop.com with recent stats on the eve of World Aids Day, which takes place annually on December 1st.

According to the CDC, the number of adults tested for HIV reached a record high in 2009.

Last year 82.9 million adults between the ages of 18-64 reported getting tested for HIV. That’s a total increase of 11.4 million people since 2006, when the CDC recommended that HIV testing become a routine part of medical care for young people and adults.

Read more at AllHipHop

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World AIDS Day: Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga to sign off Twitter for charity

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NAIROBI, Kenya– An official with Kenya’s largest gay rights organization said Monday there is panic among its members following remarks made by Kenya’s prime minister that homosexuals should be arrested.

The office of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya received calls from concerned members, some of whom are HIV-positive and fear they will be arrested when they collect life-prolonging medicine from government clinics, board member Nguru Karugu said.

Prime Minister Raila Odinga on Sunday said homosexuals who are found in the midst of sex acts will be arrested. Odinga’s spokesman said in a statement Sunday night that the prime minister was quoted out of context.

In an audio recording of Sunday’s speech heard by The Associated Press, the prime minister says in the Kenyan language of Kiswahili that “if a man is caught having sex with the other we jail them, or if a girl is caught with the other … we will jail them.” In the latter part of his statement he used profanity to explain lesbianism.

“We want a country that is clean, a clean way of doing thing has clean mannerisms … we do not want things to do with sodomy,” Odinga said.

Kenya’s laws prohibit “sex against the order of nature.” That charge is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Karugu said the prime minister’s remarks are big blow to Kenya’s efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. He said the government has included gays in its plans to combat the virus.

Civil rights activist Zawadi Nyongo called for a protest outside the prime minister’s office on Wednesday.

Odinga’s spokesman, Dennis Onyango, said the prime minister was trying to convey how groups opposed to the country’s new constitution — which was adopted in August — used lies and scare tactics to get people to vote against it.

Onyango said the prime minister gave two examples of opposition propaganda that the new constitution would legalize gay marriage.

“He then added a rider that even if the constitution allowed gay marriages, census data showed there were more women than men in Kenya and people would naturally go for marriage with the opposite sex,” Onyango said. “The highlight on the alleged order for a crackdown completely missed the point.”

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Africa — Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga take charity work seriously, and they’re going offline to prove it.

Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Usher and other celebrities have joined a new campaign called Digital Life Sacrifice on behalf of Keys’ charity, Keep a Child Alive. The entertainers plan to sign off of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, which is World AIDS Day. The participants will sign back on when the charity raises $1 million.

“It’s really important and super-cool to use mediums that we naturally are on,” Keys said in a phone interview from New York last week.

For the campaign — which also includes Jennifer Hudson, Ryan Seacrest, Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Elijah Wood, Serena Williams, Janelle Monae and Keys’ husband, Swizz Beatz — celebrities have filmed “last tweet and testament” videos and will appear in ads showing them lying in coffins to represent what the campaign calls their digital deaths.

“It’s so important to shock you to the point of waking up,” Keys said. “It’s not that people don’t care or it’s not that people don’t want to do something, it’s that they never thought of it quite like that.”

The campaign, she said, puts the disease in perspective.

“This is such a direct and instantly emotional way and a little sarcastic, you know, of a way to get people to pay attention,” said Keys, who has more than 2.6 million followers on Twitter.

The foundation, which began in 2003, will accept donations through text messages and bar-code technology, which is featured in the charity’s Buy Life campaign. Raised efforts support families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

“We’re trying to sort of make the remark: Why do we care so much about the death of one celebrity as opposed to millions and millions of people dying in the place that we’re all from?” said Leigh Blake, the president and co-founder of Keep a Child Alive.

“It’s about love and respect and human dignity,” she added.

Keys said recruiting celebrities was difficult because of scheduling, but “once I got people on the phone and I was able to paint the concept for them, everybody was in.”

Not one person said no, Keys recalled.

“I have a feeling that Gaga is going to raise it all by herself,” Blake said. Lady Gaga has more than 7.2 million followers on Twitter, and nearly 24 million fans on Facebook.

“She’s got a very, very mobilized fan base and that’s beautiful to watch I think (and) she’s able to draw their attention to these issues that are very important, you know, and that people follow it and act.”

Keys is hoping more people — both famous folks and non-celebs — get involved once the new initiative launches: “It just doesn’t have to be just because you’re a celebrity or something like that. It can be anybody.”

Keys, 29, married rapper-producer Swizz Beatz in July. The two had their first son, Egypt, last month. The Grammy winner said that though her life’s getting busier, being a mother and wife makes her want to help others even more.

“As a human being, you deserve to have a chance at life,” she said.

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World AIDS Day reminds us to stay

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