AIDS in America

Anyone who knows me, knows that one of the causes I am most passionate about is HIV/AIDS. If you know this, you have also heard my rant about how AIDS in America has been largely ignored over the past 10 or so years, and in particular over the past 8 years by the current presidential administration. The AIDS epidimic in Africa is horrible and something we should all be concerned about and aware of, but it cannot be at the cost of ignoring AIDS in America. It's more popular for people to be concerned about AIDS in Africa because we focus on the images of the children who are acquiring it from their mothers and the orphans of those who have been infected with the disease. We don't attach moral judgment. In America, we've become complacent to the cause, we've convinced ourselves that there are drugs to treat it (we think everyone can be like Magic Johnson), and we judge the actions that often lead to it - (i.e., homosexual sex, promiscous sex, intravenous drug use, etc.). As a result, it's on the rise. I keep wondering when the mainstream media is going to start seriously talking about this problem. I was so happy to open up http://www.cnn.com/ and see this. And in keeping with the female theme of this blog, here's a particularly shocking statistic from the article:

"AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between ages 25 and 34."

P.S. Here's another article. Read the comments at the end if you want a reminder of people's ignorance.