Killer on the Loose Amid L.A.’s Minorities

The battle against AIDS in Los Angeles County faces a new crisis: While the disease seems to be ebbing among some white males, the floodgates are bursting in minority communities.

AIDS Project Los Angeles reports dramatic jumps in caseloads compared to last year from the black, Latino and Native American communities--an 80% increase among blacks, 66% among Latinos and 87% among Native Americans. Without a proper new strategy from AIDS service organizations and county leaders, Los Angeles’ minority communities will soon be overwhelmed by the epidemic.

The major stumbling blocks to moving forward are the misconceptions many citizens and community leaders have about who is at risk and what can be done to help them fight AIDS.

For example, a recent hearing co-sponsored by the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS and the Human Relations Commission revealed the need for county leadership to realistically confront the danger that intravenous drug users cause as they spread the virus. Naysayers to the AIDS Commission’s recent proposal to provide bleach and condoms to IV drug users ignore studies that reveal that drug abusers usually refuse to enter detoxification centers but will act more responsibly if properly trained to use precautions.

Los Angeles’ junkies, whether homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual, will not suddenly wake up and decide to “just say no.” A frightening part of their sub-culture involves their sharing of needles. The terrible consequence of this practice is the number of IV drug users becoming AIDS-infected. In the case of pregnant women among them, a rapid escalation is taking place in the number of infants who are born with AIDS.

Testimony presented at the hearing by minority community leaders also showed that there is a critical need for explicit AIDS education and service efforts directed to specific groups.

For example, while many white heterosexuals have become more accepting of gay men and lesbian women, this tolerance has not occurred in the black and Latino communities. It is imperative for minority clergy and community leaders to re-examine their attitudes and set an example for others to follow. This is a key to changing the way that people with AIDS are regarded and cared for in their particular communities.

I believe that several new steps must be taken:

--AIDS education using explicit language must be geared to specific audiences. The generic approach does not work! Educational materials must reflect the language, religious beliefs and customs of targeted ethnic groups. To date, the handful of AIDS outreach counselors who work in minority communities have found considerable ignorance in these neighborhoods about how AIDS is spread.

--Quality AIDS services must be designed for particular target groups. There is a link between AIDS and poverty. When a person becomes ill, he can no longer work. Then he will not receive insurance benefits. At that point, the astronomical costs of hospital care leave him beyond medical assistance. Many of those who are infected will only end up on the streets unless adequate hospice programs are created throughout Los Angeles.

--AIDS outreach programs and services must become decentralized. While numerous AIDS service agencies can be found in West Los Angeles, there are few in South- Central Los Angeles. Currently there are only four Spanish-speaking AIDS support groups in the entire county.

Within the next several weeks the county’s AIDS Commission and Human Relations Commission will make formal recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. I would urge that the commissions call upon the supervisors to assign staff in their district offices to concentrate on specific community AIDS issues. These offices should contain a counterpart to the county AIDS Commission so that the needs of every geographic area can be properly represented. I also want to challenge such successful, centralized programs such as AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Gay and Lesbian Community Service Center and the Los Angeles Hospice Foundation to decentralize their efforts in order to better serve the needs of Los Angeles’ wide-ranging racial and ethnic groups.

Meanwhile, government and the private sector has the responsibility to adequately fund the minority community’s emerging AIDS care and educational organizations. In all instances, every organization laboring in this field must be part of a coalition. This united approach will reduce unnecessary expenses and duplications of efforts while seeing to it that the entire community is well-served.