HIV fears rise in blacks

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jonathan Perry can understand how HIV infections have spread rapidly in the black collegiate population. Despite common knowledge of his HIV-positive status, he said, men who say they are heterosexual still seek to have unprotected sex with him.

Health officials in North Carolina and across the South are disturbed by an increase in infection rates among black students more than 20 years into the AIDS epidemic. Officials attribute the rise to a mixture of ignorance, recklessness, homophobia and denial, and people like Mr. Perry are trying to be part of the solution.

“It’s affecting the future,” said Mr. Perry, a senior at historically black Johnson C. Smith University who plans to speak at campus forums on the issue. “This is not a poor person’s disease. It’s not a gay person’s disease. It’s a human disease.”

North Carolina researchers found 84 newly infected male college students in the state from 2000 to 2003, 73 of them black — representing 20 percent of the state’s new HIV infections among 18- to 30-year-olds. The study found that HIV infection among male college students jumped from six cases in 2000 to 30 in 2003.

The cases were linked to 37 North Carolina colleges, and up to a dozen related cases were found at schools in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

This was the first documented outbreak of HIV on U.S. college campuses. Researchers say college students were 3.5 times more likely than nonstudents to become infected.

The actual numbers may seem small. But state health workers say a drop of food coloring in a glass of water is more noticeable than a drop in the ocean.

“You have a smaller pool of people,” says Phyllis Gray, project manager for the state’s HIV/STD prevention branch. “Once you have a virus loose in a small pool of people, you’re more likely to have that virus have a greater impact.”

Further reducing the pool is the finding that a majority of the cases — 67 — involved black men who have sex with other men, but don’t identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual. Of those, 27 said they also had sex with women.

“And more importantly, they don’t consider themselves to be at risk for HIV,” says David Jolly, an assistant professor of health education at North Carolina Central University. “And, therefore, they weren’t taking the precautions they needed to. … So what that says to me is that we’re not getting the message to these guys in an effective way.”

Mr. Jolly and others wonder whether there is a cultural element to this outbreak. Many point to a 2002 incident at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, in which a student attacked another with a baseball bat for staring at him in the shower, as evidence of antihomosexual sentiment in the black community.

“We know that it’s very hard for young, gay men — period,” Mr. Jolly said. “But it’s particularly hard for young, gay men of color to be out and be comfortable being out, being public about who they are. So it’s not terribly surprising to me that a lot of these guys do not identify as gay or bisexual. It’s not a very safe and accepting environment for many of these guys.”

Erin Bradley, a junior at Atlanta’s all-female Spelman College, says the situation creates a dangerous atmosphere for women because they have no idea that their boyfriends also might be having sex with men.

“Within the black community, homosexuality is not something that is welcomed or even spoken about in general,” said Miss Bradley, who practices abstinence. “It’s not seen necessarily as a problem. Or if it is a problem, it’s real hush-hush.”

Story Continues →