‘AIDS: Cool Reception’

In response to your editorial “AIDS: Cool Reception” Feb. 20:

It’s unfortunate that the Center for Disease Control and Dr. Peter Kerndt, epidemiologist in the Los Angeles County AIDS program office, interpreted the fact that fewer than 100 representatives from minority agencies working in AIDS-prevention programs showed up at the Biltmore Hotel for the briefing the CDC offered recently, as having received a “cool reception.”

It was unrealistic to expect 1,000 people, especially considering the kind of organizing job that was done. Besides, there are probably not even 20 black and Hispanic agencies in the area with the needed track records to be considered viable enough to get funding from the CDC. This in itself reflects the kind of neglect minority agencies suffer from in terms of the overall funding problems they experience.

Second, the Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health Programs, had a two-day training that same week at the Biltmore Hotel for the same purpose. They are operating from funds from the CDC, also.

The real issues, however, is that the $9.7 million in grants of $20,000 to $225,000 the CDC is directing to minority and other community-based organizations to sponsor HIV-prevention, may be making the CDC feel very generous, but if you spread it out throughout the country to black and Hispanic communities it amounts to the proverbial drop in the bucket. There are about 34 million blacks and Hispanics in the United States. In Los Angeles County there about 4 million, and yet the chances are that at best only four or five minority projects will receive funding from this source.

It is blatantly erroneous to say that black and Hispanic communities are offering the greatest resistance to “the kind of behavior modification” that can reduce the risk of getting infected by the HIV virus. The CDC and the public health departments have simply not gotten the message that one cannot offer resistance to something that hasn’t been offered.

And it sounds to me--from the tone of your editorial--that the black and Hispanic agencies working in the area of HIV-prevention programs are, at least indirectly, being blamed. Same old story: Minorities are being accused of being victims of their own apathy.

FRANK M. SIFUENTES

Public Relations

Multicultural Area Health

Education Center