The Conversation Starts Here

As I am wont to do when slightly bored, but unwilling to get up off my duff and clean the house, I turn to state statistics and HIV. Today I decided to review the most recent reports from Ingham County. Those can be seen here.

Here’s what I found most interesting: HIV in Ingham county is an overwhelmingly WHITE, MEN WHO HAVE SEX WITH MEN disease. According to the statistics, 182 white men have HIV from MSM or MSM and IDU. That compares to 41 Black men and 13 Hispanic men. Less than 5 cases have no racial identifier, and both black and Hispanic MSM IDU’s have less than 5 cases.

Here’s something a bit more scary: age groups 13-29 represent 150 cases of HIV/AIDS in Ingham county. While the age group 30-39 represents 147 cases. The number decrease as the age bracket increases.

So what does this actually tell us? After all we had a significantly lower number of new cases this year than last (15 v. 23). But it does presage that we are failing to address the HIV epidemic in the men who have sex with men community.