|
Top stories
Headlines provided by Moreover
|
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20071009/470afcc0_3ca6_1552620071009-1281494451
10/9/07 WebSearch
|
|
Black
Pastors Step Up in HIV/AIDS Fight
By DEEPTI
HAJELA (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated
Press
October 09,
2007 7:38 PM EDT
NEW YORK
- Black ministers called on the federal government Tuesday to declare HIV/AIDS among blacks a public health emergency and
proposed legislation to address the disease in their community.
Almost half of all new HIV diagnoses are among blacks. Black men were diagnosed
with the disease at a rate eight times that of white men, while black women were diagnosed at a rate almost 23 times that
of white women, according to 2005 figures, the most recent available, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The church leaders also pledged
to promote HIV/AIDS testing and awareness among their congregations.
"Just as African-American clergy fervently came together 50 years ago to
fight for civil rights, we are banding together today to bring an end to HIV/AIDS and its potential to obliterate our community,"
said Bishop T.D. Jakes, leader of the Dallas megachurch, The Potter's House.
Jakes spoke at a two-day conference of black clergy organized by the National
Black Leadership Commission on AIDS. The event drew more than 150 members of the clergy, politicians and medical professionals.
Ministers pledged to work with the Congressional Black Caucus on proposed
legislation titled the National HIV/AIDS Elimination Act that they hope to introduce in Congress as early as January.
The act asks the president to declare HIV/AIDS among blacks a public health
emergency, a declaration that would trigger the use of certain funds and resources against the disease, said commission president
Debra Fraser-Howze.
Many conservative churchgoers are put off by the disease's association with
gays, but Jakes said the emphasis needs to be on saving lives, not theological debates about homosexuality.
"Our focus right now is saving lives," he said. "Tomorrow we can save souls."
|
|
Bush Requests $30 Billion to Fight AIDS
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published:
May 31, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 30 — President Bush called
Wednesday for Congress to spend $30 billion to fight global AIDS over the next five years, a near doubling of financing that is part of a White House effort to burnish Mr. Bush’s humanitarian
credentials before he meets leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations next week.
The initiative, if approved, would build on
a program that grew out of the president’s 2003 State of the Union address, when he asked for $15 billion over five
years for prevention, treatment and care of AIDS patients in developing countries. Congress approved more than $18 billion,
but the program is set to expire next year.
Mr. Bush’s announcement, delivered in
the White House Rose Garden, adds to what has become an unexpectedly high priority for the White House. AIDS was not a signature
issue for Mr. Bush when he ran for office in 2000. But it has become one in part because the Christian conservatives who make
up his political base have embraced it, and in part because Mr. Bush wants to build a legacy for the United States
and a more compassionate image abroad to counter international criticism of American policies in the wake of the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks.
That sentiment was reflected in Mr. Bush’s
remarks on Wednesday.
“Once again, the generosity of the American
people is one of the great untold stories of our time,” he said. “Our citizens are offering comfort to millions
who suffer, and restoring hope to those who feel forsaken.”
AIDS advocacy organizations praised Mr. Bush
for proposing the additional money, but said the plan — which he said would provide drugs for 2.5 million patients —
did not go nearly far enough toward meeting the international community’s stated goal of treating the estimated 10 million
patients in developing nations.
“It’s a modest increase, it’s
important that he reaffirmed it, but we will need the next president to do more,” said Paul Zeitz, executive director
of the Global AIDS Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group. “We’re not getting ahead of the AIDS crisis. We’re
tempering it.”
Administration officials concede that point
and say the White House is hoping Mr. Bush’s announcement will prod other Group of 8 countries, as well as nations that
have growing economies, to make spending commitments of their own.
“The goal of universal access isn’t
a United States goal, it’s a global
goal,” said Mark R. Dybul, the administration’s global AIDS coordinator. “The rest of the world is going
to need to respond if we are going to achieve these goals.”
International development and human rights issues
will be high on the agenda of next week’s summit, but so will climate change — an issue on which Mr. Bush finds himself at odds with his fellow Group of 8 leaders, notably the meeting’s
host, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.
Dan Bartlett, counselor to Mr. Bush, said the president intended to address climate change in a speech on Thursday at the
United States Agency for International Development.
But so far this week, Mr. Bush has been devoting
most of his attention to human rights and poverty, issues that draw him less criticism than his stance on climate change.
In an interview Monday night, a senior administration official said Mr. Bush planned to spend the week in advance of the Group
of 8 conference spotlighting humanitarian issues and “demonstrating U.S.
leadership around the world.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Bush announced he was imposing
stiff economic sanctions on Sudan to press its government into cooperating
with a United Nations peacekeeping force that is trying to end the violence in Darfur.
On Wednesday, in addition to the AIDS announcement,
Mr. Bush named Robert B. Zoellick, his former trade representative, as his candidate to head the World Bank, calling the nominee “a committed internationalist” who “wants to help struggling nations defeat poverty.”
In Thursday’s speech, Mr. Bush also intends to talk about education programs in the developing world, and his initiative
to combat malaria.
The AIDS initiative, which is likely to generate
bipartisan support in Congress, would cover federal spending for the 2009 to 2013 fiscal years, meaning the vast majority
of the money would be spent after Mr. Bush left office. To promote it, the White House is sending Laura Bush to Africa next month.
“She and I share a passion,” Mr.
Bush said. “We believe that to whom much is given, much is required.”
The United Nations reports that there are nearly
40 million people worldwide living with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; last year three million died from their infections.
In his announcement in 2003, Mr. Bush said he was committed to offering treatment for two million H.I.V. patients by 2008.
But so far, he said, the program, called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, has paid for treatment for
just 1.1 million people in 15 nations.
Advocates complain that the new goal, bringing
the number of patients treated to 2.5 million, is not that much more ambitious than the old one. “By 2013 there will
be 12 million people that urgently need medicines,” Mr. Zeitz said.
The White House, however, said that in addition
to providing treatment for 2.5 million, the new money would prevent 12 million new infections and provide care for more than
12 million people.
Mr. Bartlett said the president was convinced
America’s image in the world would
improve because of it.
“I’ve heard him
talk about this is a part of America that gets overlooked,” he said, “and that over time, people will look back
and say, ‘At a point in time where America may have been under scrutiny for other reasons, look at the significant contribution
they have made. They saved more lives than anybody could have imagined.’ ” |
The Rev. Jesse Jackson takes an AIDS test.
|
Web Address AS Of August 11, 2006:
http://blackvoices.aol.com/black_news/canvas_directory_headlines_features/_a/hiv-testing-the-magic-bullet-in-the/20060809175909990001 |
HIV Testing: The Magic Bullet in the Fight Against AIDS?
By AOL Black Voices Staff
BV News
So much has changed in the 25
years since HIV/AIDS first appeared on the landscape as a "gay" disease, wrapped in stigma and prejudice, and carrying an
absolute death sentence. Today, people are living long, active lives with HIV; the global reach of the pandemic has gone a
long way to remove the gay stigma, and people with power, both political and financial, sufficiently understand the need for
dramatic action against the disease.
Bill Gates is spending money on it. George W. Bush talked about it in his last
State of the Union address.
"If not mitigated," lamented Congressman Elijah Cummings, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, "the disease will continue to wreak devastation. HIV/AIDS is a pandemic that
belongs to each and every one of us, and we must address it societally and holistically."
BV News Poll
But it seems that the people who
are most affected by the disease are the ones least involved in the fight against it. African Americans account for the largest
and fastest-growing demographic group among Americans living with AIDS. Yet, ignorance, denial and recklessness continue to
be the hallmarks of African-American behavior when it comes to this disease. In one study conducted by the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control (CDC), more than a third (34 percent) of black men who admitted having sex with men, said they also had sex
with women, a huge risk factor for spreading HIV. The same study found that 64 percent of the bi-sexual men, who tested positive
for HIV, did not know they were infected, compared with 18 percent of Hispanic men and 11 percent of white men.
These
dire circumstances are made worse by the fact that only six percent of African-American women in the study admitted that they
had sex with a bi-sexual man: Because of that ignorance gap, the virus continues to spread.
Read the AIDS Blog!
Black Voices kicks off its first health blog during the International AIDS
conference in Toronto. Log on to get the latest coverage from
black leaders and activist attending.
In one recent AOL Black Voices poll, more than 67 percent of respondents said they had not had a HIV test in more than a year, and more than half of those,
by far the largest group, said they had never had one. The poll also revealed that the lack of testing is not based in the
confidence that they are not infected: A majority of respondents, 51 percent, told us that they thought people don’t
get tested because they don't want to know their status.
More BV News
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has put the search for an AIDS vaccine among its top priorities. And when, in his 2006 State of the Union address, President
Bush said: "A hopeful society acts boldly to fight diseases like HIV/AIDS, which can be prevented, and treated, and defeated,"
it was another great leap forward, more evidence that the world now understood what was at stake in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Your Last Test
The bad news about HIV/AIDS lies in what Bush said next: "…
More than a million Americans live with HIV, and half of all AIDS cases occur among African Americans. "There is good news
about advances in AIDS treatment in general, but we must confront the bad news about the toll HIV/AIDS is having on the world
black community.”
According to the CDC, 50 percent of all the new AIDS cases diagnosed in the last five years
in the U.S. were among African Americans,
who account for less than 13 percent of the population.
Bush has called for new legislation to supply money for testing
and treatment and prevention, and in the State of the Union he promised, "We will also lead a nationwide effort, working closely
with African American churches and faith-based groups, to deliver rapid HIV tests to millions, end the stigma of AIDS, and
come closer to the day when there are no new infections in America."
The frustrating lack of progress has led some
to conclude that testing should be the new “Magic Bullet” in the African American fight against AIDS. On the assumption
that knowledge is power, there is now an all out effort in the black community for greater testing. Indeed in Washington, D.C. the local health department said it wants
to test every resident of the city between the ages 14 and 84. Ambitious, but will it work?
As the 2006 International
AIDS Conference begins this weekend in Canada,
the issue of blacks and AIDS will be front and center. The Los Angeles-based Black AIDS Institute will sponsor a series of
events in Toronto aimed at addressing the crisis in the black community, from its effect on the African Diaspora in general to its toll on
African Americans.
A full-scale mobilization is what it will take believes Black AIDS Institute executive director Phill Wilson. "Black leaders and black churches,” said Wilson,
“traditional black civil rights institutions like the NAACP and the Urban League … have to step up and do their
part."
|
Web Address AS Of August 27, 2006:
http://www.tv.com/primetime-live/show/25131/summary.html
http://w2.yorkdispatch.com/ydweekend/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2046 |
|
Primetime focuses on the AIDS crisis
Posted on Thursday, August 24 @ 10:25:44 CDT
Topic: Television |
|
KEVIN McDONOUGH, Tune in Tonight
Primetime" (10 p.m., ABC) presents a
special report on "Out
of Control AIDS in Black America."
Although
black Americans comprise 13 percent of the population, they account for more than 50 percent of all new HIV cases. Nearly
70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States
are black. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women. Heterosexual contact is the overwhelming
means of infection in these cases of black female HIV.
"Out of Control" contains interviews conducted by the late Peter Jennings, who
had a strong hand in producing this piece. This raises a rather obvious question: If this subject is so important, why did
it take so long for this documentary to air? Jennings has
been dead for more than a year.
---With
the Emmys just days away, many people are thinking about television's most prestigious projects and outstanding actors.
|
|
|
Roger Catlin
|
`Primetime' Presents Startling Report On AIDS Among Blacks
In America
August 24, 2006
When talk turns to AIDS on TV or among politicians (which happens less and
less frequently), it's usually about the pandemic elsewhere, especially in Africa.
But
the scourge of AIDS continues in the U.S.,
particularly among African Americans - though its epidemic rise in that group elicits little notice.
A new report on
"Primetime" (ABC, 10 p.m.), begun last year by Peter Jennings before his death and completed by correspondent Terry Moran,
lays out the shocking statistics:
African Americans, 13 percent of the U.S. population, account for more than 50 percent
of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That's eight times the rate of whites.
Black women are 23 times
more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women and make up 70 percent of new cases of HIV.
Jennings conducted a group interview 10 days before he was diagnosed with the cancer that
killed him a year ago this month.
Otherwise, Moran, one of the featured reporters on "Nightline," takes up the interviews
with activists, doctors and religion leaders about the hidden crisis in the special report titled "Out of Control: AIDS in
Black America." |
|
Please "Click Here" To Return To Home Page... THANK YOU and BLESS YOU!!!
|
