This year is the officially recognized 30th anniversary of the HIV /AIDS epidemic in the USA. The focus on the disease is once again in the forefront - its spread, its prevention and its treatment have revealed many new medical facts about the virus, some hopeful and others frustrating. There is still no effective "cure" for the condition and afflicted patients continue to die although contracting HIV infection is no longer viewed as an immediate death sentence. Various groups have been identified as "at risk" at different times, beginning of course, with gay men and IV drug users in the early days of the epidemic. However, AIDS has gradually spread among other demographic groups, including heterosexual women. Secrecy and shame are often factors in hampering an accurate assessment of the true extent of the spread of the disease in certain groups. One group, considered relatively safe from HIV/AIDS in the past, Asian American women, has now been shown to have a sharp increase in the rate of infection in recent years. The problem for these women may be further complicated by the Asian community's resistance to admitting and therefore treating the condition which is considered a huge cultural stigma. The report here. (Link via Razib)
(I would like to point out that this report relates only to Asian American women who were until recently considered "safe" from HIV / AIDS. In Africa and Asia the epidemic has targeted men and women in almost equal numbers, irrespective of sexual preference)
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