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Imagine Flatbush 2030 – With Current AIDS & Demographic Trends Continuing

Ignorance = Fear, Silence = Death, Keith Haring

Are people that tired of listening to and reporting about AIDS? I know it’s a drag to keep bringing it up but…

I’m wondering if I hadn’t gone to last night’s meeting of Imagine Flatbush 2030 – if anyone else would have brought up the issue of AIDS. I did get to meet Gretchen Maneval (Director of Brooklyn College’s Center for the Study of Brooklyn), who seemed equally concerned, after insisting on addressing my concerns with the larger group. If the current demographic trends (increasing Caribbean, African, South-east Asian, Asian, Arabic-Speaking & Eastern European immigrants from lower income brackets) continue, with the existing lack of proper and adequate AIDS related services and education in Greater Flatbush and the NYC Metro Area (as an educator, I’ve personally witnessed too many parents from these cultures choosing to have their children “Opt Out” of an already lackluster NYC AIDS Education & Prevention Curriculum), we could see the rate of HIV infection surpassing those of Sub-Saharan Africa in less than a decade. The rate of HIV infection among the Orthodox Jewish community is also the City’s best kept secret. LGBTQ adolescents are totally ignored in this “new” NYC HIV/AIDS High School curriculum. Not even a mention.

Should I mention that the level of homophobia in this community is palpable?

Yes, I would love a cultural center in Flatbush so artists, like myself, would not have to export their talents. Of course, affordable and safe housing has always been one of the quality of life issues I’ve found relevant to sustainability. Sure, I would rather go to a family-owned restaurant (define family) than a Chili’s for dinner. Yes I would gladly participate and help organize local cultural events like a Junction Unction, but if half of the neighborhood is dying due to ignorance and City agency ineffacacies, hindsight in 2020 will be too late. Haven’t we learned from our NYC HIV/AIDS & long-term surviving activist communities (ACT-UP, Brooklyn AIDS Task Force, etc.) that education is the key to prevention? Abstinence is a pipedream (we know how well that has prevented under-aged pregnancies in our area). Informed decisions about safer-sex behaviours is the key to a healthier tomorrow. Oh yeah… and cycling to work and home-grown terrace tomatoes and basil.

Safe Sex, Keith Haring
© Estate of Keith Haring

This image was altered for the faint of heart.

AIDS Complacency = DEATH

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  1. Good on you, Frank, for keeping this on the radar. To be honest with you, I think there is a lack of focus on this partly because of a lack of information. I, for one, do not know much about the overall incidence of AIDS in Flatbush, and nothing about its trend/trajectory. Do you have a good source of information that I can look at to inform myself?

    Your point is well taken: thinking about heirloom tomatoes and local options for cheese doesn’t really hold water when matters of life and death are in play.

    I strongly support your attempt to call our collective attention to this issue as we imagine the neighborhood moving forward. I look forward to educating myself with your guidance.

    Eli Kramer
    Brooklyn Junction

  2. fadingad says:

    Eli- First a x and o for such a heartfelt response. 🙂

    Here are a few websites I found that are somewhat current. The problem with this area is there is serious under-reporting and more widespread social stigmas attached to HIV diagnoses among heterosexual Caribbeans and “down-lowism” is also widely practiced. Let me know what you think of the data.

    Best,
    Frank

    “Brooklynites are 3.5 times
    more likely to have AIDS as
    their fellow Americans.”

    letter from the president (SUNY)
    In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported the first cases of severe immunodeficiency and unusual opportunistic infections in gay men. Twenty years later, the AIDS epidemic has spread to the point where virtually all of us know someone who has died of this disease. During its second decade, the true scope of the AIDS epidemic became increasingly clear.

    Rates of infection among women, children, minorities, and the poor increased dramatically, and health-care professionals across the country turned their attention to the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Many looked to SUNY Downstate’s AIDS programs as a model, because we have been caring for these same populations since the beginning of the epidemic.

    During the past decade, there have also been some promising developments. New drugs, called antiretroviral therapies, are making it possible to live longer with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. For some with HIV, the disease can be managed for a time much like other chronic illnesses. Equally important, the rate of transmission to newborn babies has been dramatically cut by the use of antiretroviral medications.

    These advances, however, are not cause for complacency. Although the actual number of New Yorkers infected with HIV is unknown, we do know that fully 10 percent of people enrolling in drug treatment programs are infected. HIV among older New Yorkers is a growing problem. And a recent survey by the New York City Department of Health found disturbing rates of HIV infection among gay men. AIDS is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, a distressing part of our borough’s life. Brooklynites are 3.5 times more likely to have the disease than their fellow Americans.

    More than half the AIDS cases in the borough are among Blacks—a phenomenon not
    seen in the United States, New York State, or New York City as a whole. More children
    live with AIDS in Brooklyn than any other borough. And most adults, men and women,
    living in the borough trace their infection to injection drug use.

    This report, the fourth in a series on Brooklyn’s health, highlights these disparities and other AIDS issues that affect our lives in the borough. We hope that it will serve as a springboard for advocacy, research, and action.
    John C. LaRosa, M.D.
    President

    http://www.hscbklyn.edu/bhr/SUNYAIDS.PDF

    Diaspora Communitiy Services (formerly Haitian Women’s Program)
    http://www.diasporacs.org/Vol%201%20No%204%20HIV-AIDS.htm

    HIV/AIDS Infection Among Heterosexual Women

    Today women represent 30% of all new HIV infections in the US with the majority affecting women who are black or Hispanic. HIV is the third leading cause of death for black men and women under the age of 65. Issues confronting women, like sexism and racism, can put them at even higher risk of infection and make it more difficult to get treatment and care. Most women used to become infected by injecting drugs. Today, most women are infected by an HIV-positive man.

    The National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Disease (NIAID) and a program addressing the epidemic among women and prevention of infection in their children offer information worth our attention:

    Worldwide, more than 90 percent of all adolescent and adult HIV infections have resulted from heterosexual intercourse. Women are particularly vulnerable to heterosexual transmission of HIV due to substantial mucosal exposure to seminal fluids. This biological fact amplifies the risk of HIV transmission when coupled with the high prevalence of non-consensual sex, sex without condom use, and the unknown and/or high-risk behaviors of their partners.

    Women suffer from the same complications of AIDS that afflict men but also suffer gender-specific manifestations of HIV disease, such as recurrent vaginal yeast infections, severe pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), and an increased risk of precancerous changes in the cervix including probable increased rates of cervical cancer. Women also exhibit different characteristics from men for many of the same complications of antiretroviral therapy, such as metabolic abnormalities.

    NIAID is studying the course of HIV/AIDS disease in women and that transmitted to their children (2)

    It is clear that as citizens of the world, or of New York City or of Brooklyn we have a responsibility to face. We can all be more serious about prevention; we can all get past the stigma of testing; we can all work toward better National and International policies for treatment; and most of us can find a way of making a donation. Thinking RED and buying RED doesn’t hurt. Ignoring it will.

    BUY RED
    http://www.joinred.com

    Donate to Diaspora Community Services
    Click Here

    (1) http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/ah/ah.shtml

    (2) http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/
    womenhiv.htm

    Wide disparities exist in HIV across New York City communities. In Flatbush, the rate of HIV diagnoses (70/100,000) is more than 25% higher than the NYC overall rate. However, the rate of people living with HIV/AIDS (1,389/100,000) in
    this community is slightly lower than the rate in NYC overall.
    The death rate due to HIV disease has dropped by 70% during the past decade in
    this community. In 2003-2004, the average annual HIV-related death rate in
    Flatbush was similar to the rates in both Brooklyn and NYC overall (21/100,000
    vs. 20/100,000 in Brooklyn and 18/100,000 in NYC).

    http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/data/2006chp-207.pdf

  3. xrisfg says:

    Frank, I wanted to thank you for speaking out last night. I didn’t have a chance to before we left.

    And to answer your opening question honestly: yes, I am tired. 27 years of this is tiring. Let’s get it [AIDS] back in the agenda.

  4. fadingad says:

    Xris- After living 24 years with the virus, and at almost age 48, I’m tired of doing the math myself. There are days when I almost forget. Almost. I’m sure there are addressbooks where you can staple whole sections shut (remember writing things down by hand?). We all have been through a terrible period from which we would like to forget and move on. But we can’t move on “as if…” …especially when we are planning for the future and trying to avoid disaster.

    “thank you for speaking out last night” – it’s become a vocation! 🙂

    Thank you for being a familiar smiling face in a well lit room. I look forward to working with you again. And congrats again on that pic sale!

    Jump

  5. Gretchen Maneval says:

    Thank you, Frank, for so eloquently raising HIV/AIDS as a clear and imminent sustainability issue during last Wednesday’s Imagine Flatbush 2030 meeting. The Center for the Study of Brooklyn is currently drafting an epidemiology report to serve as a context for a proposed HIV/AIDS initiative. We still have a few months ahead of us of vetting/defining the substance and scope of work of this proposed initiative, as well as conducting an environmental scan to get to know the current players/stakeholders involved in Flatbush and Brooklyn. From my initial work on the epidemiology report, I certainly have a sense of urgency regarding the advancement of this work, and am looking forward to collaborating with you and others in the community given your extensive knowledge and insight into this epidemic. I thank you again for voicing concern about this crisis, and look forward to discussing further ways in which we can work together. Best regards, Gretchen Maneval, Director, Center for the Study of Brooklyn

  6. fadingad says:

    Gretchen- You are very welcome. In the beginning of the crisis ( early 80s) we were aware of the potential of a pandemic. With early detection and administering of anti-retrovirals, the virus can become undetectable which, in my case, has prolonged my life and quality of life. Unfortunately, with limited or no access to health-care, accompanied by the social stigmas in these communities, you are looking at a powderkeg ready to explode. If there is anything I can do in terms of outreach, enlist me.

    Jump