Clinton to Boost Minority AIDS Funding

President Clinton today will announce $156 million in new government funding to better combat the AIDS epidemic among blacks and other minorities, administration officials said Tuesday.

The targeted money will go to help develop new strategies for preventing the spread of AIDS among blacks and other ethnic groups and to improve community services and treatment for black and Latino patients.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and the Congressional Black Caucus persuaded federal officials to come up with the funding, arguing that AIDS is a public health crisis in the black community. The immune-deficiency disorder is the No. 1 killer of black men between the ages of 25 and 44, and 60% of the women with HIV or AIDS are black.

“The resources did not follow the epidemic and the black community came up short,” said Waters, who fought hard for the funding.

One initiative seeks help from historically black universities in devising prevention programs that incorporate the religious values of African American communities.

The new money will be used in several different ways. Some of the funds will be used to send teams of public health and HIV-prevention experts to communities where the epidemic is most acute to assess the existing services for minorities and develop new strategies to fight the disease and treat those who suffer from the virus.

Payment for Protease Inhibitors

Roughly one-third of the new money will support substance-abuse programs and pay for protease inhibitors, the effective but extremely expensive drugs that control the level of the virus in infected persons, and other treatments. Money will also go to establish new community organizations to serve patients in black and Latino neighborhoods and provide more funding to existing groups that serve minority populations with the illness.

Two-thirds of the $156 million was designated for such programs in the federal budget Clinton signed last week. The rest was redirected from other discretionary spending programs.

“The epidemic seems to have leveled off among the gay community, but African Americans and Latinos are experiencing increases and we haven’t been able to figure out how to put a lid on it,” said Patsy Fleming, the former White House director of national AIDS policy, who now works as a consultant for the United Nations AIDS program.

HIV, the infection that causes AIDS, can be spread through sexual contact and contaminated needles and blood, as well as from mother to child in the womb.

Administration officials agreed that the $7 billion the federal government plans to spend on AIDS-related programs next year will not effectively address the epidemic in the black and Latino communities.

Although African Americans make up only 12% of the overall population, as of last year 43% of all reported AIDS patients were black. Another 20% were Latino.

While the AIDS death rate has dropped significantly in recent years and great progress has been made in preventing the spread of the illness among gay men, AIDS continues to thrive in the black community. While the number of whites who died of AIDS in 1996 declined 32% over the previous year, the decline for African Americans was only 2%.

Two-thirds of the people served by the $1-billion federal Ryan White HIV treatment program are black and Latino, which roughly corresponds to the percentage of people who have the illness.

But the black and Latino populations with HIV/AIDS are poorer than their white counterparts, are more likely to be uninsured and are not as well served by private organizations. Therefore, administration officials and AIDS experts agreed, black and Latino AIDS patients should receive a larger part of the federal funds.

Ineffective Prevention Programs

Prevention programs in particular have been largely ineffective within the black and Latino communities, in part because the programs were designed with the white homosexual community in mind, administration officials said.

The new funding is designed to address the specific needs of the black and Latino communities.

One reason for the lack of success in those communities, Fleming said, is that they have not rallied behind the prevention and care efforts the way predominantly white homosexual communities have. This disparity is caused, in part, by the fact that these communities tend to be much poorer than gay white men, she said. In addition, the advocacy efforts of black and Latino communities also are directed toward the problems of unemployment, teen pregnancy, violence and drugs, while the white gay community has been singularly focused.

Fleming said that the disparity of the AIDS-prevention efforts in different communities was driven home for her when she visited two AIDS service organizations in one city. One predominately served white homosexual men and the other served low-income blacks and Latinos, and both were conducting fund-raisers at the same time. While the first group expected to raise $1 million, the second dreamed of bringing in $100,000.

“As an African American myself, I am concerned that within the black community there is some resistance to accepting the fact that AIDS is a deadly disease that is wiping out people in great numbers and is being passed from one [person] to another and from one generation to the next,” Fleming said.

“It’s very appropriate that the leadership for this came from the Congressional Black Caucus. This area has badly needed an infusion of leadership and they are giving us that,” said Daniel Zingale, executive director of the Washington-based lobbying group, AIDS Action.

Times staff writer Marlene Cimons contributed to this story.