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01/25/2005:

"Black Americans suspect HIV plot"

by Gary Younge
Almost half of all African-Americans believe that HIV, the virus that causes Aids, is man-made, more than a quarter believe it was produced in a government laboratory and one in eight think it was created and spread by the CIA, according to a study released by Rand Corporation and the University of Oregon.

The paper's authors say these views are obstructing efforts to prevent the spread of HIV among African-Americans, the racial group most likely to contract the virus.

"The findings are striking, and a wake-up call to the prevention community," Laura Bogart, a behavioural scientist who co-authored the study, told the Washington Post.

"The prevention community has not addressed conspiracy beliefs in the context of prevention. I think that a lot of people involved in prevention may not be from the community where they are trying to prevent HIV."

African-Americans are 13% of the US population but account for 50% of new HIV infections, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

African-American women constituted 73% of new female HIV cases in 2003.

The study, which was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, also revealed a slight majority believe a cure for Aids is being withheld from the poor; 44% think the people who take the new medicines for HIV are being used as government guinea pigs, and 15% believe Aids is a form of genocide against black people. The responses barely fluctuated according to age, income, gender or education level.

Na'im Akbar, a professor of psychology at Florida State University who specialises in African-American behaviour, stressed that these views are grounded in experience.
Full Article: guardian.co.uk