bout 17 percent of gay men in Chicago are…

bout 17 percent of gay men in Chicago are HIV-positive — and half of them don’t know it.

That’s according to authorititative new estimates from the Chicago Public Health Department.

In particular, black men who have sex with men have double the HIV infection rates of white and Hispanic men, even though they don’t appear to engage in riskier behavior, Chicago health officials said today.

Their report was based on data collected last year from 570 Chicago men in the National HIV Behavioral Surveillance system.

It’s the first time Chicago health officials have used blood-testing to determine HIV infection rates in this high-risk population, said Christopher Brown, assistant commissioner of the health department’s STD, HIV and AIDS division.

Past estimates have relied solely on interviews with gay and bisexual men about their HIV status.

“What we found out pretty much confirms what we’ve known for a while,” Brown said.

See Study: Half of HIV-positive men in Chicago don’t know it

Chicago Sun-Times

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Indiana removes gay white men from HIV/AIDS funding priorities

The Indiana State Department of Health recently cut gay white men as an HIV/AIDS funding priority. African-American and Hispanic men who have sex with men are still included as priority populations. The decision was made by the department’s advisory Community Planning Group (CPG).

The CPG is a Center for Disease Control (CDC) mandated process for funding HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in the states; it aims to be politics-free and representative of the community. The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) administers CDC HIV/AIDS prevention funds. Indiana health activists charge that the Group ignored the CDC’s criteria for defining community priorities.

See Indiana removes gay white men from HIV/AIDS funding priorities

Huffington Post

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