Subject: AIDS Risks in Black and White ---- By John H. Bunzel Date: Published: 12/17/91 (118 lines) Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. AIDS Risks in Black and White ---- By John H. Bunzel A few days after Magic Johnson's message that "it can happen to anybody," a black student writing in the Stanford Daily expressed the hope that the famous basketball star will be able to use his influence "to teach the facts about AIDS." Magic's message that "we are all at risk" -- that this is the great lesson he has learned -- is an important one. But, by itself, it is incomplete. It is not true that all Americans are equally in danger of contracting AIDS. Magic has stated that he needs to talk to the black community in particular. He is right on target. There are perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 heterosexuals who are getting the AIDS virus every year (with no evidence of a decline), most of whom are blacks and other inner-city minorities. These are the people he must reach. Conceivably there could be 100,000 people who will test positive for the HIV virus in the years ahead (a more precise figure is impossible to come by) who will be overwhelmingly in the inner cities. Any one who has sex with them is playing a losing game of AIDS roulette. AIDS has long been considered a "gay white man's disease" -- and in the early stages of the disease in the U. S., it was. Now, a decade or so later, the spread of HIV among the roughly one million people in this country who are infected with the virus has slowed among gays and is growing rapidly among poor, urban heterosexuals who are sexually involved with infected drug abusers. Statistics tell the story. Black Americans make up 11.7% of the population, but represent 28% of Americans with AIDS. Black children represent 53% of all AIDS-infected people under 13. In the San Francisco Bay Area, one in every 185 black mothers is infected with HIV. And the life expectancy of black men diagnosed with AIDS is much shorter than that of whites. The heterosexual AIDS problem in the U. S. orbits around the intravenous drug abuse problem. Since the beginning of the epidemic, there have been 10,989 heterosexual contact cases, or about 6% of the more than 196,000 AIDS cases reported. Of these, 5,818 were the sexual partners of intravenous drug users, most of whom were blacks or Puerto Rican Hispanics living in such cities as New York, Newark, Baltimore, Washington and Atlanta. While more than half of this country's heterosexual AIDS cases come from sexual contact with an IV drug user, another 2,400 are among people born in areas of sub-Saharan Africa and some Caribbean countries, where most of the reported cases occur in heterosexuals and the male-to-female ratio is approximately 1:1. The single leading indicator of what is likely to happen to heterosexuals in the U. S. depends on their potential sexual partners. If they make certain that their potential heterosexual partners have never been IV drug users (usually determined by simply looking for needle tracks) or were not born in one of the African or Caribbean countries where AIDS is spread predominantly through heterosexual contact, the risk of acquiring AIDS is .000017%, or two per 100,000 of the whole population (based on figures from the Centers for Disease Control). If only whites are considered, then the risks are 10 times fewer, or two in a million. It is true that the AIDS virus recognizes neither color nor gender. However, it is very much related to a person's way of life, which is why the inner-city life in the fast lane puts young black people seriously at risk. A black basketball player who is active heterosexually with inner-city minority partners is playing a dangerous game. The hard fact is that blacks are 50 times more likely than whites to get AIDS heterosexually. There is some indication that in the past the black community itself has failed to take AIDS seriously. As the San Francisco Examiner noted last month, only two of 18 members of the Black Congressional Caucus attended the hearings on AIDS, and only 30 ministers attended a recent AIDS meeting sponsored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. "Where are Jesse Jackson, Benjamin Hooks, Bob Martinez and the many other black and Hispanic leaders who speak out so forcefully on related issues like drugs, poverty, education and public health? " asked Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page. It is a sign of the deep pathology that afflicts the inner cities today that many black men do not look upon AIDS as a matter of immediate or urgent concern. The truth is that their whole lives are at high risk every day. Homicides, suicides, and "legal intervention" are the leading killers of young black men in the inner cities where the AIDS virus is most prevalent. AIDS is not high on their personal radar screens. Thus the terrible problem facing not only Magic Johnson but everyone who wants to provide those in the inner city with "more education" about HIV is that their message may not reach them. AIDS is a terrible disease. Every sensible and caring person must be concerned about its spread. But this concern needs to be tempered by reliable information and knowledge so as to avoid excessive fear. A reasonable estimate of new HIV infections nationwide is on the order of 30,000 a year. To put this in context, consider another set of medical facts. More than 900,000 Americans die each year of cardiovascular diseases (including stroke), and an additional 500,000 from cancer. Armed with an understanding of the facts, AIDS is the one killer disease that men and women may be able to avoid. --- Mr. Bunzel is a past president of San Jose State University, a former member of the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights, and a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. Joel Hay of the Hoover Institution contributed to this article. [This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]