I wonder if the study in the Annals of Epidemiology in March of 2006 has been considered. In it, the notion that African Americans engage in different or more risky sexual practices is refuted - particularly with regard to what is termed "on the down low behavior": the idea that black men have unprotected sex with other men due to the social stigma of homosexuality and therefore pass HIV to unknowing heterosexual women. The fact is, it has yet to be properly explained how a retrovirus is so discriminate...how it can jump from a primarily white, gay, male population to a largely heterosexual black population and for two decades, continue to infect primarily these two groups.

There are many subcultures that engage in risky sexual behavior and one would think that over the thirty + years HIV has been infecting Americans, it would have spread evenly throughout the country. In fact, it was predicted by the CDC and NIH and touted on numerous news and talk shows in the 1980s that HIV/AIDS would, in fact, spread evenly and affect everyone...but it has not. And if one looks at the spread of STDs, one finds that unprotected sex is as popular as ever...but HIV remains primarily the plague of gay men and African Americans. Why?

I hope some light is shed on this very soon. The idea that black people have different "behavior" is racist. Period. And it is a far too easy an explanation for this illogical behavior of a retrovirus.

I suspect something very important is being missed..or ignored.