Good information on HIV and MSFws

[Guest guest]

Thanks to Alayne for alerting us to this article (Nov 03) reviewing U of

California material from the J of AIDS and to Tom Painter for the original

reference (Oct 27) to the same special issue (J of AIDS). I look forward to

reading this material.

Some comments came to mind. The idea of HIV as a minimal problem among migrant

workers is based on bi-coastal differences between selected samples from the

eastern United States showing high levels of infection and samples from the

western United States that show low (or " non-existent " ) levels of infection -

until recently. The situation was never one of no infection but minimal levels

of infection in the West. I heard a colleague comment in a presentation at the

East Coast Forum on how puzzling this was, since migrant farm workers on both

coasts were engaging in and exposed to similar risk behaviors/factors.

A review of death certificates over a two-decade period in one southwestern

state (not CA), for example, found a number of persons dying of AIDS-defining

illnesses with occupation listed as “agricultural worker” (but low percentage

overall) and others listed as “construction worker” that may have included off-

season or former farm workers.

Several states and even cities have higher proportions of Latinos among those

counted in AIDS statistics than proportions of Latinos in the general state

population. This also is true of some southern states where African Americans

(who continue to perform farm labor in several areas of the South) appear in

higher proportions in AIDS statistics than their proportion within the general

state population. This disproportion is not new news.

There still is much to be done.

V Bletzer

Medical Anthropologist