For the first time since AIDS arrived in the United States, minority homosexual men tested positive for the disease in numbers greater than their white counterparts in 1998, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One key reason, according to CDC: Homosexuality carries a larger stigma in minority communities and both black and Hispanic homosexuals had been more reluctant than whites to identify themselves as such and thus seek AIDS prevention or treatment services.
"I have had conversations with people who, upon learning that their son had AIDS, prefer to tell people he was a drug user than a gay man," says CDC director of HIV prevention Dr. Helene Gayle to the Associated Press. "It clearly is a badge of shame."
The CDC report Thursday indicated 52 percent of the nation's gay and bisexual men diagnosed with AIDS in 1998, with black gay men comprising a third of the new cases and Hispanic gay men 18 percent. The AP says researchers saw many years ago that there would be such a trend coming and anticipated the time when minority AIDS cases would overtake new cases among whites.
