by
Mike Aivaz and Muriel Kane
Washington, DC AIDS activist Nicole Styles felt she had to do something to help when she learned last winter that her city has the highest AIDS infection rate in the country, with 1 person out of every 20 being affected. Since then, she has been working with Metro TeenAIDS, handing out condom kits on street corners and trying to convince young people to use them.
One reason why Washington suffers from third-world rates of infection is that the federal government has done little to intervene. According to ABC's Nightline, "Many in DC suspect what seems like indifference is because 80% of those infected are African-American and most of the others gay."
"That should have been declared a state of emergency," Styles told Nightline angrily. "They know. ... Do they care?" She added that "It would be all over the place" if white heterosexuals were the ones at risk.
Another problem is that AIDS has a stigma in the black community, and many people just don't want to talk about it. There is reluctance, as well, to introduce AIDS education in schools early enough to help the many students who are sexually active by the age of 12 or 13.
The complete ABC story can be found here.
The following video is from ABC's Nightline, broadcast on November 23, 2007
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Originally published on Tuesday November 27, 2007.