Bloggernista

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to announced that nearly 50% more Americans are infected each year with HIV than has been originally estimated. Previous estimates were that 40,000 Americans are infected each year. The new data estimates that between 58,000 and 63,000 Americans are infected every year.

From the Washington Blade:

According to AIDS advocacy groups familiar with the CDC, middle level officials at the disease prevention agency have quietly confided in colleagues in professional and scientific circles that the number of new HIV infections now appears to be as high as 58,000 to 63,000 cases in the most recent 12-month period.

On its web site this week, the CDC left unchanged its longstanding estimate that about 40,000 Americans per year become infected with HIV, a figure it says has remained “relatively stable” for most of the past decade.

CDC officials have told leaders of AIDS advocacy groups that the new figures are being withheld while they are subjected to a rigorous peer review process by an unidentified scientific journal, which is expected to publish the findings within the next few months.

This information has been available HIV advocacy insiders in what Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, calls “a poorly kept secret” for some time, but there has been no public announcement and none is expected until the media dead time between Christmas and New Year’s.

That’s a great time to release news that you really don’t want to make news.

Is this another example of the Bush administration hiding scientific reality because it doesn’t fit within its extremist agenda?

BTW, yet another evaluation of abstinence only programs has come showing that they do not work. This is after more than half a billion dollars have been wasted on such programs since 1996. Of course, the Bush administration and Republican congressional leaders are continuing to push for more funding for abstinence programs. Meanwhile, more Americans become infected with HIV.

Related:
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