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 the 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 United States 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.
Between 1932 and 1972 the federal government conducted experiments on 400 African-Americans in Tuskegee, Alabama. They were told they were being treated for syphilis but were allowed to sicken and die, and in some cases were actively denied treatment, until the experiment was exposed in 1972.
”This is not a bunch of crazy people running around saying they’re out to get us,” he said.
However, others, including Phil Wilson, executive director of the Black Aids Institute, insist that African-Americans must come to terms with this past if they are to overcome belief in conspiracy theories and the obstacles they present to effective prevention.
”The syphilis study was real, but it happened 40 years ago, and holding on to it is killing us,” he said.
‘It does not matter where the disease comes from’
Aids activists in South Africa say they also have to debunk myths about the virus, which were often products of ignorance or denial.
”I think these myths [like sleeping with a virgin will cure a HIV-positive man] arise from a lack of understanding and a lack of education of our nurses and our doctors, said Aids activist Rukia Cornelius, the national manager of the Treatment Action Campaign.
”Instead of arguing and debating where the virus comes from and who is responsible we, should focus on the reality,”
”It does not matter where the disease comes from; [the] reality is that it is here. Over 600 people die a day because of a lack of access to anti-retroviral drugs (ART’s).
”We have a crisis and all our effort and time should be spent on finding a cure and educating people on treatment and prevention. Instead of turning to ART’s a lot of people turn to alternative ways of treatment and to traditional medicine,” Cornelius said.
”There is nothing wrong with that, but people should be better educated about how to combine ART’s and these alternatives.
”In South Africa we face a situation where some people in government do not believe that ART’s prolong people’s lives and they promote alternative ways. These might work, but they should always be applied in combination with ART’s.
”These alternatives are not regulated and the Minister of Health or the Department of Health should communicate better on how to combine these alternatives with the use of ART’s.
”Communication is key in having people understand what the virus is and how it can be managed,” Cornelius said. – Guardian Unlimited Â