AIDS leading cause of death in African-Americans?

[cokaine]

It's easy to google the answer to this question and it may be true but I was under the impression that heart disease was the leading cause of death in most ethnicities. I was watching television yesterday and a commercial with actor Jamie Foxx promoting HIV testing, mentioning that AIDS is the leading cause of death amongst the African-American population.

I also wanted to ad a link to a site with statistics which I find difficult to understand. it stated "Average life years lost from HIV/AIDS: 35.7 years (SEER); 37.9 for HIV in North Carolina1."

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/h/hiv_aids/deaths.htm

[Bucko]

If you'd have asked me, I'd have said heart disease was the #1 killer of African Americans. But i do know that the fastest-growing demographic in our little family is minority women, at least last I heard.

The link seems factual as regards what i skimmed, with none of the warning bells associated with propagandist websites attempting to scare people. But when i eventually found the page discussing prognosis, the latest year I saw was 2001. Much has changed in the intervening six years, to be sure.

As you are a newbie, Cokie, no doubt you've heard that newly-infected people can expect to die by some other cause, and I hope in your case that's correct. But until the advent of PIs in 1995-6, HIV=AIDS=certain death at a young age. By 1992 I'd stopped counting my losses at 60. All the deaths from the "dark ages" need to be figured into mortality figures.

Brent
(Who remembers it all)

[Miss Philicia]

Half of the people at my doctor's office in the lobby are African American women.  Well, I guess they're women -- there's also many that are questionably pre or post-op transsexuals.  I'm always amazed at how many of those there are in this city... many more than in NYC and there were a lot there.

In fact, I'm often the only white cracker in the waiting room.  Fortunately my many years cavorting with the celebutantes from Paris Is Burning prepared me for all such events, though unfortunately most of them are long dead.  It will ALWAYS be about Mother Angie... she was so severe.

[Cliff]

I seriously doubt HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of deaths amongst blacks.  Far too many people (of all races) die from various diseases that are quite common as a person reaches 60-80 years of age, like cancer, heart disease, stroke, etc. 

HIV/AIDS is probably the leading cause of death among certain younger age groups (like 20-30 year olds), where other health conditions rarely kill.  How many 25 year olds die from cancer or heart disease?  Not many.   So it would be quite reasonable for HIV/AIDS to rank as a much higher killer than other diseases.

[Ann]

While men still make up the vast majority of reported HIV-AIDS diagnoses in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that diagnoses of women rose 17 percent from 2001 to 2005, with more than 9,800 women diagnosed for the first time in 2005.

Of U.S. women currently living with the virus, about 64 percent are African Americans, and another 15 percent are Latina. HIV-AIDS remains the leading cause of death for African American women aged 25 to 34, and a top-four cause for black women 35 to 54. It's also the fourth-leading cause of death for Latina women 35 to 44. Younger women remain at higher risk and only cancer and heart disease kill more women annually.

An excerpt from AIDS Among U.S. Women Is on the Rise By Jeff Fleischer. Read the whole article here

[ChaplinGuy]

I think the important issue to address here is that blacks are among the highest rankings in heart disease, diabetes, HIV and a myriad of other illnesses because of the social architecture of their community. Homophobia, poor diet, lack of exercise, inadequate education, and misguided financial habits all need to be factored into this alarming trend.