we're spreading death among ourselves. both black men down and women are at much greater risk of getting age i v compared to their white counterparts youth as well as adults. we began our investigation by looking at men who account for seventy percent of all new infections among blacks but what was surprising is that it's not just men who have sex with men who need to be concerned about hiv. i did everything possible to get in this position yeah i wanted that you know the way i did my life was fast and free so i pretty much got what i was looking for if

i'm not mistaken now with and p. g. communities he clone and i think that's why our first i first fell on top when he told me i didn't believe him because i had all these s.t.d. is like now. if you go away here. you know bad i was my thinking about did it overall way but it didn't go away and stanley's response was good now and then now doesn't need as i already already you know like ok if i get it i want you how you know i want to get our. you know i probably did go get a had bad day you know i would not think about it because i know i know i know me so i play and we get home and my dad you know you tell me all head on head along. he want to know you want i want to buy. so many drugs they be it you take

my calls you name. and i had a name. and one time i had to get stats like three times a week. honestly. i think not be in a room if you don't wish it was you know everything everything is heavy you know your legs they have you very weak and you still got to get them to get it out to get these three shots so we yeah honestly i think. i had three blood transfusions because of it you know. so they dealt with an experience both in the self and after living with hiv for over thirty years if i tell you a story you can say is that all that you had to go through. and that's why. everybody's body is different and you know everybody body is different what i go

through you may never go through then again you might go through it twice is worse so don't look at me and say oh yeah i'm a poster child no i'm not opposed to. someone then with it every. i remember when major magazine said this would never be a heterosexual disease it would always be you know in the in the gay community it would always been the drug community it would now have a spread to they had all sorts of community well that was false but when people heard that it was like all thank god i'm heterosexual i don't have to deal with i have to be worried about this you know this epidemic our investigation reaffirmed that men having sex with men are highly susceptible to contract ing hiv. what we also learned is that straight ahead roe sexual black men are a rising tide in contributing to the growth of this deadly virus taking percent of

the population may be african-american but we make up a much larger percentage of the individuals that infected with hiv the any and it is screwing especially among young people a young african-american the centers for disease control have presented strong data showing that youth between ages thirteen to twenty nine are an ever growing population falling prey to h i v. however we learned of a segment of this group that seems to have gone almost unnoticed youth born with this disease i've heard women use the terminology you know he gave this to me when somebody gave you something it's because you accepted i contracted hiv from this man i was in a relationship with him and we had

a child i love my daughter he meant for me i thank him and for whatever reason that god use him and me as a vehicle to bring this challenge to the world h.i.v.'s here the elephant is in the room is what i'm doing with that elephant i no longer. i have locked myself into this anger you know look what he did to me. when my parents spawn thousand entirely positive i was six years old and. it was on my doctor's appointment and you know how they have a play room for kids no one waiting for the doctor and i was in the play room whilst playing and it's a crime i'm out the pay room so i guess those who are paying for the tell me my doctor came out the room and he came and picked me up from the plane room and when we went into the room i see my mom and bill of tears so me i'm pulling away from my doctor like mommy i'm still i mean toys or could he not i don't know why my mom was

crying and she was like most we had just come in and the doctors was like you know your mom want to talk serious i'm like ok and she just told me she just my birthday wow i guess i just passed so like explain that and how she is birches blurted out and so my first question was that always i'm a dad because i used to hear like a lot of kids in africa dying from a child being made so that was my biggest fear that i was going to die they broke down and saw a way that i could understand they you know there's medications out there that's going to take care of you but you're not this is something that's going that you're going to live with for ever i shared with the school that raise every possible i never expected outcome i never expected teachers would have discriminated against or even i never expected that administrators would not have taken the time to learn and understand how this disease is transmitted so they wouldn't discriminate against it. so when i went to school the next day and i had told my arm friend i

say you know i went to the doctor and my doctor told me that my mom told me that i had hiv and i soon as i said that my teacher she automatically pulled my friend away from me and probably glows around the class so my undo sort of back to her knowing that i was hiv positive i couldn't go on in class ships used to pull garbage bags around me like if i had to use the bathroom she let me use the bathroom or myself shoes or take my school lunch away from me or do so factor me being a child be positive she was abused she was abused by i was school system other children started harassing gravely and she even got older with to know that adults treated this child the way that she did i mean a child was in catholic school. private schools you would think you know somebody know better they do better that was not the case kids used to make fun of me saying that i have the monster or they used to just that i would get things to me like this one guy used to have really long hair she cut my hair off one day like i was

while i was watching a movie in class and all of a sudden i heard says gold charm and i just went like and she was like yeah i'm cutting your hair up because you're going to die soon and i just sat there and i love how continue doing it and because i'd just like as i said when grown up i just felt like you know this is how my life is going to be made everybody just going to make fun of me but everyone did not make fun of her and the tender age of six trichotomy oprah winfrey and i was a millennium during matter of time that's when mcdonald's was doing kids that dealing with any type of onus they would send them my to disney world i went on my show and i was sick at that time i had a fever but i was like oh i'm sick i don't want to sit next to me and she just open arms to make sweetheart i don't care what you have you're on my shoulder i want you to tell me what what do you go through and like i just remember me saying man talk to oprah and she was just crying my mother just start crying because man just

telling everybody i'm having a child being. always sick and i told them i'm down in oakland just like well how about if i send you to disney world or something and hope i didn't move and then went there i was once a go there and i. hope listening to disney world i confronted her dad he said to me ain't life ain't life a bitch. you know how long i've been living with this he called me and he was a spike while he was on the show why did you tell people to eat i'm positive you shouldn't do that how do you think i'm going to look so is like who says like one though he just as i when he hears asked why it's on the magazine also and on the he'll just get upset like he's not supportive of wired so as raven grew into her team's life with her mom became strained they took thirteen i always saw people had they tried taking my life away me my mom started making really arguing and my

crisis i get really mad i had it was just it was a lot to me at that i say my teenage years was like my. back to the age of rank sixteen seventeen i had to make where i say you know even. your mom didn't do something but you know she didn't know at the time and i had to realize i had to put miley sense into this like. i was born with that i'm actually this you know i can't be mad at my mother what can she do you know let me make make it make your future better don't don't look beyond the path i don't look at a child we as a bad thing in my end of other youth and raven's age group who are planning to contract in h i v. the reaction of people what they're going to think of them of the stigma that's the main one i think of the stigma that's why

a lot of young kids good think it tested me on probably that they disgusting and stuff like that but i'm talking as they young because i'm still in the young generation that you know that's the that's what. our biggest problem is that you know people think that being us in this that much. wealthier british style. is not on the spot. markets why not scandals. find out what's really happening to the global economy in these kinds of reports on. the first baby steps joy. folds and bones are not a big deal. but they can cause terrible trauma.

for children can be broken by bertouch. and only the will of life can make. i'm source way. fragile people on r.t. . here the reindeer isn't everything for the herders. and when it suffers. people do their best to help. but the distances are. on the roads are tough and unpredictable. will the romany deal chaing.

choose your language kelly mcevers though in a financial planner i say still some. choose the buttes the consensus i can. choose to opinions that invigorating a good mind. choose the stories that impact your life choose the access to your office. the americans have had to me to spot some of the family and the church to address what i have a crisis they are going through because the church was the place that sent us historically the collets the church was the place of you had the illness the chance of going come and support you you know of someone died you can depend on the church

to come and bring the food you know to me come in bring whatever you need even help me to bury your loved ones you know i mean that was the church if you would have you didn't have that chance was going to come in and fill that gap for you. but when they first hit black america most family members were caught off guard those two points those points of comfort were not quite there you know thank god some people had great family support. most families back then did not know what he was on they were afraid you know there was not a lot of information there was a lot of myths so we have that myth that it's not part of me i'm not gay i'm not a lesbian oh i'm a lesbian i can't catch it. i'm not in that age group i can't catch it yes it is it's it's it's in the house many victims of h i v and aids were shunned by close

family members and when they turned to the church the head the head of the state board that initially applied to be a top three anybody would to come forward with fearing that they would be attacked especially by the religious leaders the church you know was caught up in this is a homosexual disease and you know it's you know again you know going to hell and we're not going to you know we're not going to address that that he was so important for the black church to be there for the community because of the black church did not want to accept it because you are gay or begins each i mean in had a bigger sort of impact in that if you're not then allowed to potentially good that church has. been known effective jeter that affected your mother your onto your brothers your sisters because they then also felt like maybe the enemy or part of

that being so in the beginning it's a gay white man's disease black folks it's not out issue really when people were dying left and right by nineteen eighty six african-americans accounted for twenty five percent of those infected with hiv prime causes for this rapid increase were a disproportionately low response at the national state and local levels adding to these external factors was the growing stigma surrounding this infection. unlike many other communities when somebody in an african-american has each and that person is sentences in a sense in general. silence by family members and local clergy bound by fears and denial only strengthened the growing prejudice against those infected with hiv every black family has someone who has been addicted to drugs or alcohol as someone who was gay you know so that wasn't a new phenomenon what was new was that we were not about to talk about it in public

i had a minister the said to me it's a rule reverend cheeks. homosexuality i don't have that problem in my church i said a problem. i said how because the church twelve hundred people has a soul in twelve hundred people and easily does say that ten percent of the population this gay and lesbian and you don't see anybody so you don't have anybody in your choir you don't have anybody on your deacon board on your minister ariel staff on you in your administrative office no way you don't see no one gay and as i understand homosexuality and drug addiction are two taboos that were well entrenched within the black family but almost never openly discussed. aids in the black family added one more to subject to be consciously ignored many times i would preach a sermon call for a family and that would have the family come and say you cannot say that he was gay

or you cannot say that he died of aids you can say dad of cancer but they can you can say he died of aids are you kidding me all of the whole community no. so the way i used to give a round that was i would have remarks come first and of course people would get up and say well i knew when he first got infected and the family would get us out never said a word it was like the big elephant in the room and nobody wanted to talk about it . we explored internal factors that led to the early growth in the aids epidemic in black america while doing so we learned that silence fear and denial so evident back then has undergone little more than cosmetic changes thirty one years later. the womb. the low

blood. and i have quite a few friends that were raised in the church you know i have lots in the search service been supplied a few churches visiting but it was something that i just didn't see. in my spirit and still to come to. enjoy the music but a lot of the other rituals just didn't sink in as i became older and found all the way islam was the only way that i knew in the new place that i needed to go back to what i needed something spiritually something a little more religiously grounding. from mine the same day isn't anything in the koran actually says about homosexuality being gay this is just a lot of the other. laws govern by the sharia laws you know things that got

a lot of us some of what the profit were practice. where it goes into homosexuality . being missing. the point i first found out i was positive. like i said i really didn't think it would be possible i was doing a student teaching and i want all my lunch break to get my answers to get the results . and when i walked out today and he said i was positive it was like i was living in a fog. but i was in a daze. and i went back to work like nothing had ever happened but it did it devastate i didn't know where to turn to talk to. how to tell family. i was lost. it was my mother father and we were

any case in. and my husband says oh hi how are you what's going on and they say nothing you know i had him with me there as well when it's all me you know i need you guys to this is one involved with it in a mother was cooking we came in he said he wanted to talk and he came in and my husband came in. he told us he had something to say to us and its own that i was a positive this is why i'm in a relationship with a mother started crying and my father being the man he is ask me so what does it mean you lost dresses and they bring you do you know who will he set up the days it was god and just life floored me that started the whole argument and i just walked out you know that put a big strain on our relationship. it's different it's better than it was there isn't a whole lot of conversation or close to none conversation about my sexuality me

being gay or maybe any positive. washington d.c. carries the distinction of being ground zero for having the highest h.i.v. infection rate in america all of d.c. has an epidemic because there are unusual consolation as not being a state not even be in city where a cut out all of d.c. is out of them an epidemic level but d.c. is not so unique when compared to other major cities across the nation if you compare metro d.c. that is diminished did the disco columbia and its suburbs metro d.c. with metro philadelphia metro chicago metro miami were about the same there are twelve cities in the united states in which half of the people with hiv aids lives city d.c.

is one of those twelve cities. we spoke to medical professionals concerning the disproportionate rise of hiv aids in the black community you ask forty five to fifty percent more community be done with the disease as we know how to prevent it by the way african-americans are more likely to get tested in any other ethnic group more likely to get to know we get tested we always go for the results but we always don't get into care particularly in rural graphical remote areas we tend to have a physician or a clinician who has graduated from school or from college you know ten fifteen years ago when never had to cheat persons or interview positive because it was all you remember they infectious disease physicians were treated so they still don't treat and a still don't know and they are not willing to. what is the level of hiv training provided for medical professionals the majority of the local hospitals and doctors

offices within the district of columbia i think staff physicians nurses ancillary personnel understand that this is not a disease of casual contact so that you go in the hospitals now you don't see red bags outside of the door you don't see signs up there of isolation just because a person is a positive you may see it up there for a host of other reasons but not for being possible. it would seem that this heightened awareness of medical professionals would lead to earlier detection of new age hiv patients six to two percent of patients who actually come into care are diagnosed with aids within a year of being testing positive for hiv let me see that again within a year of a diagnosis of hiv over six to two percent of those patients are diagnosed with those patients the majority of them were receiving medical care what it means then is that the clinicians the physicians physician assistant nurse practitioner

advance practitioners pharmacists dentists did not know the clinical manifestations of the disease or didn't pay attention. of those who can afford medical care it appears that many medical practitioners are not adequately trained in detecting the early signs of hiv or may simply choose not to treat such patients nobody worries about being positive with syphilis and or nobody even thinks twice about most herpes infections but h.i.v. seems to carry a burden. that we just can't explain. this fear seems to be borne in not just the general public but among medical practitioners as well we had and i had an opportunity to speak with some young physician some. just finishing up residence and a group of them were talking at

a meeting we were at recently and the us codes is each of you being taught in your in your program and told them said to us you know when we're at the hospital do a t. shirts and these are residents getting ready to walk to become full fledged physicians visiting a little one of when those patients from that are positive ok you know clinicians clinicians with whom hiv has been a road all of their life. and we were stunned when one young woman talked about being in the clinic. and a patient was h. if you visited both some cookies in that she'd been. going to another of the police went in front of us said to her did you people say to be positive cookies. victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia going to marry profit out of also it is a very high return on investment. which is good knowing that he has it but i've

been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups when they brought me to better i knew that i don't know trees or change their name and strategy but just tell the same murderous. ranking suspects give no comment very upset on that mr president go through. to president clinton. both of you. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no. investigation is a dead end. he said. was sick stop your bullshit and keep quiet or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves because the same goes for them. regards from synch i've never heard of such a case as ours were so much money gold has stolen for so many years. for all the

gold in colombia. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so for like you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is ok you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture. at. least be cool language such. as programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world's hot spots to feel at peace interviews intriguing story to tell you. in trying. to find out more visit our big. dog called.

hold it hold it. hold it hold. it. hold it. i live. a. good speech. she gave. her. i wish i. lived long sleep good. luck. let me. just see a little bit of a little bit of a little mouse run of a little.