AIDS Organizations Insistent That Rise in AIDS Figures Is Not Misleading, and Therefore They Need More Money
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Written by jay
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Friday, 28 March 2008 04:22 |
For the record, we're not trying to work against The Cause, kids. Alls we're trying to say is that the new figures released by the Centers for Disease Control are not, in their own words, cause for quite the level of alarm being sounded by 365gay.com and HIV/AIDS organizations who are bitter about cuts to their funding under the Bush Administration. So, we're playing devil's advocate in part because we're bitches about spurious math, and in part because we like to feel like an actual news organization sometimes.
The facts:
# of new HIV cases reported in 2005: 35,537
# of states reporting in 2005: 38
# of new HIV cases reported in 2006: 52,878
# of states reporting: 45 states (includes several densely populated states which were not counted in 2005: California, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Maine, Delaware and Rhode Island)
total overall increase in cases cited on 365gay and elsewhere: 48%
estimated 2006 population of the 7 new states reporting: roughly 62 million
estimated 2006 population of these 7 states as percent of US total: 21%
While we don't want to suggest that any noticeable rise in HIV infection isn't cause for concern-especially at a time when "bareback" is such a popular search term on craigslist/Manhunt-we just want to point out that statistics can (almost) always be manipulated to say what you want them to say, and major news outlets like the New York Times have so far avoided this story, probably for want of some clearer analysis. And organizations like Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation are quick to leap on headlines about the 48% figure in order to appeal for more funding for their organizations-and certainly in New York, where HIV cases have been on the rise among men, this funding is probably justified.
But data always have to be put in context, and with the states of California and Illinois not even part of the 2005 figure, comparing that to the 2006 figure is not exactly apples-to-apples. HIV isn't just a gay disease, we know, but without numbers from the way gay metropolises of Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, that 2005 figure is kinda different in context, no?
ALSO: The CDC released this "Dear Colleague" letter today in which they state, quite plainly, "These data do not represent an increase in HIV diagnoses or HIV incidence... This increase in the number of states reporting has reulted in an increase in the number of reported cases of HlV from 35,537 in 2005 to 52,878 in 2006."
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