This is a joint posting with Luke Easley
In August, CDC released updated estimates of HIV Infection in the U.S. showing that incidence for 2006 and over the previous decade was 40% higher than previously estimated. This was big news on the eve of the Mexico City AIDS Conference, but made more news on September 17th, when CDC officials "at a House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearing said they would need an additional $4.8 billion dollars over the next five years to reduce the annual number of new HIV infections in the U.S." The LA Times reports that:
The new numbers, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., were found through improved testing and were not an increase in new infections, which have remained relatively constant since the late 1990s. The higher estimates, however, served as a reminder that preventing transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus is still an issue in the United States, where the prevalence of HIV is greater than in Canada, Australia, Japan or any Western European country except Switzerland.
Sound familiar? Prevention of HIV transmission was NOT the strongest component of the United States' fantastically generous PEPFAR program overseas (see my colleague David Wendt's blog) AND it doesn't seem to be doing the trick at home either. As the LA Times reports: "Young black gay men have been especially hard hit, representing 48% of new infections among gay and bisexual males ages 13 to 29. Yet only four of the CDC's 49 recommended intervention programs specifically target gay men, and only one of them is designed to address gay men of color."