Growing Concern of Aid in the African American Community

The Growing Epidemic of AIDS/HIV

In the African-American Community

By Idris Abdul Zahir

In the early 1980’s Kaposi's sarcoma, a cancer usually associated with elderly men of Mediterranean ethnicity. Eventually the men wasted away and died. As the realization that gay men were dying of an otherwise rare cancer began to spread throughout the homosexual and later the medical communities.

The syndrome began to be called by the colloquialism "Gay Cancer". As medical scientists researched, they discovered that the syndrome included other manifestations, such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP). A rare form of pneumonia caused by protozoa, its name was changed to "GRID", or Gay Related Immune Deficiency. The effect that the stigma of homosexuality had on the general public's perception and handling of the disease cannot be overlooked.

Within the medical community, it quickly became apparent that the disease was not specific to gay men (as blood transfusion patients, heroin users, heterosexual women and newborn babies became added to the list of afflicted), and the renamed the syndrome (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in misconception holds that the disease was introduced by a gay male flight attendant, named Gaetan Dugas, referred to as "Patient Zero".

However, subsequent research has revealed that there were cases of AIDS much earlier than initially known. It has also been theorized that a series of inoculations against hepatitis that were performed in the gay community of San Francisco were tainted with HIV. There is a high correlation between recipients of that vaccination and initial cases of AIDS, though this of course has never been proven to be accurate.

Since the turn of the century, the overall health of all Americans has improved substantially. Although advances in medical and scientific technology have improved the health status of the American people, there is a growing concern and recognition that African-Americans have not benefited equally from the fruits of science. Whereas these facts are not "new news," it is apparent