Minority Groups Account for Half of New AIDS Cases

Noting that for the second month this year, half the new AIDS cases reported in Los Angeles County in July were among minorities, AIDS activists on Tuesday called for increased public and private efforts to prevent an explosion of infection among Latinos, blacks and Asians.

Nonwhites also accounted for half the new cases reported in March. Before 1986, minorities accounted for only 29% of AIDS cases in Los Angeles County, but the numbers have been rising steadily. By 1989, the percentage of cases among nonwhites had risen to 42%.

Nationwide, blacks and Latinos are about twice as likely to suffer from AIDS as whites, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

The July figures from the county Department of Health were released by the nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which runs a hospice for AIDS patients, and Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles).

Of the 207 new cases reported in July, 103 were among minorities. As of July, a total of 841 new cases have been reported this year.

Foundation President Michael Weinstein said the figures show a continuing shift in the epidemic to people least served by the health care system and overlooked in the preventive educational programs that mainly have targeted homosexual and bisexual white men.

His assertion is backed by a countywide report earlier this year by Dave Johnson, AIDS coordinator for the city of Los Angeles, who studied new cases reported between 1986 and 1989 by neighborhood.

He found that the annual percentage increase in cases dropped steadily, for example, in the Hollywood/Wilshire and Glendale areas, where the risk group is primarily white and privately insured. But in Compton, mostly black and poor, the percentage increase has been higher each year, according to Johnson’s April 2 report.

At a news conference to call attention to the situation, Torres called the escalating cases a “harvest of neglect.” For the minority poor, dependent upon public hospitals and clinics for medical care, it can take months to get treatment for illnesses associated with infection with the AIDS virus, he said.

He called for expanded services at all outpatient clinics in the county’s six hospitals, although he later acknowledged that there was no immediate source of money for the expansion.

Three weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors cut $7.6 million from the county health services budget, forcing a reduction in services in the public hospitals’ already overcrowded clinics.

Torres blamed Gov. George Deukmejian for recent cuts in state aid for health care for the poor and for what he called years of inadequate measures against the AIDS epidemic.

“This is a political question,” Torres said. “Nothing can be done immediately until we get a new governor.”

But Deukmejian’s press secretary, Bob Gore, dismissed Torres’ criticism as groundless.

“California has 20% of the AIDS cases (in the United States), and spends 30% of the money” on treatment and prevention programs, Gore said.