All Articles Tagged "washington dc"
HIV Rates Among Black Women in Some US Cities Now Rivals African Countries
Rates of HIV among black women in Baltimore, Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, NC, Washington, DC, Newark, and New York City have been found to be five times higher than previous CDC estimates, and the rate of infection is now equal to some African countries.
The latest data comes from the ISIS (Women’s HIV Seroincidence) Study which analyzes at-risk women in these six urban areas of the United States, which have some of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS. A total of 2,099 women ages 18 to 44 who had never had a positive HIV test were included in the study; 88 percent were black and 12 percent Latina. At the time of enrollment, researchers found that 32 women were infected with HIV but were unaware of their status.
Within one year of joining the study, 0.24 percent of the women tested positive for the disease. According to ABC, this number compares to HIV rates found in the general population of many sub-Saharan African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (0.28 percent) and Kenya (0.53 percent).
Dr. Carlos Del Rio, principal investigator for the Atlanta area of the study and professor of medicine and infectious disease at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said “this epidemic is the face of the forgotten people.”
“This disease is alive and well in this country,” he added.
Dr. Del Rio said the “hot spots” for the disease are some of the most impoverished parts of the United States, which is bad from a social standpoint, but the centralization gives healthcare advocates specific targets for intervention efforts. According to Dr. Sally Hodder, lead author of the study and professor of medicine at New Jersey Medical School in Newark:
“Slightly more than 40 percent of the women did not know the HIV status of their last sexual partner. And more than 40 percent of our participants had an annual household income of $10,000 or less.”
Given that information, and the fact that after one-year of follow-up, 10 of the women included in the study died of causes unrelated to HIV, Dr. Del Rio said prevention efforts have to take a multi-pronged approach.
“We can’t just say, ‘Here’s some information on AIDS and here are some condoms. We’re talking about structural interventions that are needed. We need better access to medical care and screenings, substance abuse treatment, education, and job availability for these areas of the country.
“This is going to need some bold leadership and out-of-the-box thinking,” he added. “I do think it really can be stopped, though. It’s not beyond hope and I honestly don’t think it wouldn’t even take that long to eradicate the disease, it just needs a lot of imagination.”
Do you think there’s hope in the fight against HIV among black women? What do you think should be done?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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atlanta, baltimore, black women, CDC, HIV, ISIS Study, new york city, Raleigh-Durham, washington dcWoman Told Breastfeeding Was Indecent
Security guards in a Washington, DC DMV picked the wrong mother to mess with this week. When Simone dos Santos was breastfeeding her 4-month-old in a hallway, two female security guards asked her to stop because it was indecent. What they didn’t know was dos Santos is an attorney, and she wasn’t about to take their “indecent exposure” claim at face value.
“I called my law firm to ask for pro bono assistance and an associate who could immediately research whether there was a law regarding breastfeeding in public,” dos Santos wrote in a blog for the Washington Post. “I wanted to get the name of all of the guards involved, and finally got a name and number of a supervisor before I was called into the room for the hearing on the parking ticket.”
dos Santos added that she’s since learned that the guards were wrong and had no right to stop her from breastfeeding her son. Citing the “Child’s Right to Nurse Human Rights Amendment Act of 2007, she said the law allows women to breastfeed in any location she has a right to be with her child—-public or private.
Stories like these aren’t uncommon. Last year, ABC did a little undercover experiment to gauge people’s reaction to mothers breastfeeding in public. Most people didn’t approve, but approval and rights are two separate things.
Are you bothered by women breastfeeding in public? Have you ever been asked or asked someone else to stop breastfeeding when you were out?
Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.
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Black Businesses Barred from DC Grant
(Afro) — A grant designed to assist newly-introduced retail shops on H Street while offering no relief for longtime minority-owned businesses sparked a heated debate on Sept. 21 with city officials. Officials with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED), and the Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD), laid out the criteria, application and deadline process for local businesses to apply for the newly-introduced H Street Retail Priority Project Grant (RPAG). The grant awards a total of $1.25 million in $85,000 allotments to eligible merchants. As DMPED Chief Of Staff Brian Kenner and the other officials described how the RPAG came to supplant an earlier, ineffectual, tax increment financing (TIF) funds initiative for H Street business improvement, meeting attendees aggressively pressed forward, demanding to know why barber shops and beauty salons had been excluded from consideration for RPAGs.
DC Gun Restrictions Upheld
(Washington Post) — A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld the District’s authority to impose a system of handgun registration and rejected a challenge to the city’s ban on semiautomatic assault rifles and large-capacity ammunition clips. The 2-to-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District leaves in place the gun-ownership regulations passed by the D.C. Council after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2008 ended the city’s decades-old handgun ban. Calling the ruling “an important victory for the District of Columbia,” Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) said it “upholds our government’s authority to pass reasonable gun laws.” “It supports the registration requirements as well as the bans on assault weapons and large magazines — each of which are key components of the District’s battle against violent crime,” the mayor said in a statement.
Parts of Area Housing Market Almost Back to Pre-Recession Levels
(Washington Examiner) — The region’s housing market is showing signs of recovery, with median home prices in some areas nearing pre-recession highs. But experts warn that the market will hit some bumps before it returns to full strength. The strongest signs of growth are in the region’s inner core of the District, Arlington County and Alexandria. In particular, the District’s median price in August was nearly 90 percent of its November 2005 high, and in Arlington County it reached 95 percent of the peak in June 2006, according to data from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., which tracks the local housing market. The Washington area is performing at the top of the curve nationally as well, with the highest average home price of any metropolitan area in the country, according to July data released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller.
DC Program Turns Vacant Buildings into Apartments
(NBC News) — Tough economic times continue to burden Americans, especially when it comes to people losing their jobs and their homes. While balancing both campaigning and duties as head of state, President Barack Obama fights for his jobs bill, attempting to assuage worries that he has been inattentive to his political base in the black community. He insists that Congress pass it now and argues that this bill will help begin incremental change. Many say that he has not done enough. But faced with slow change from federal bureaucrats, local governments are taking things into their own hands. The city of Washington has partnered with nonprofit organizations to create a new program that trades hard work on vacant buildings into homes for the homeless. If successful, the program would begin to reduce high unemployment rates, curb increased homelessness, and alleviate shriveling public assistance funds.
Council Weighs Black Man's Monopoly of DC Oil Market
(Washington Post) — A D.C. Council effort to break up what some members call a near monopoly of the local gasoline market has stalled as a result of aggressive lobbying on behalf of Eyob “Joe” Mamo — whose company owns, operates or supplies 164 stations in the Washington area. As the primary owner in Capitol Petroleum Group, Mamo has built a regional powerhouse in the fuel market, netting $778 million in revenue last year. And in May, as area gas prices soared past $4 a gallon, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) sponsored antitrust legislation to break Mamo’s grip in the District by banning wholesalers from also owning retail service stations. Concerned that the District has among the highest fuel prices in the nation, the council’s Committee on Government Operations and the Environment in July approved Cheh’s legislation, which was widely expected to come to up for a full council vote this month.
Marion Barry’s Son Scheduled to Be Sentenced in Drug Case
(Washington Post) — The son of D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, two months after pleading guilty to felony drug charges. Marion Christopher Barry, 31,pleaded guilty in July to possession of PCP and marijuana in D.C. Superior Court.
D.C. Has Worst Traffic in U.S., Study Says
(Washington Post) — Washington suffers from the worst traffic congestion in the nation, with drivers spending more than three days out of every 365 caught in traffic. Helped along by a relatively robust economy, the Washington region forged well ahead of perennial rivals Chicago and Los Angeles, which ranked second and third in an extensive study conducted annually by a research group at Texas A&M University. “This is one of those odd times when bad news is good news,” said Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean T. Connaughton. “The reason we have more congestion is that the Washington region has a very strong economy. I go to other parts of the state and they say they have no transportation problems.”
D.C. Parents Raise Concerns About Middle Schools
(Washington Post) – Alice Deal Middle School in Northwest Washington is bursting at the seams, and with good reason. For foreign language, students can choose French, Spanish or Mandarin Chinese. The school offers football, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, track, baseball, softball, volleyball and fencing. The list of after-school clubs includes international cooking, African drumming, gardening, Scrabble and Gay-Straight Alliance. This fall, the school has 1,014 students in a building designed for 980. At Brookland Educational Campus at Bunker Hill, serving preschool to eighth grade in Northeast’s Ward 5, the menu of offerings for middle-grade students is quite different. There is one part-time Spanish teacher. Students are offered basketball, track, cheerleading and chorus. And there are parents who say the situation in their community is untenable.
