Florida: Gay Men Urged to Get Tested for HIV

At a recent town hall meeting at the Lake Worth Playhouse, Palm Beach County health experts launched a drive to make regular HIV testing the norm for men who have sex with men (MSM). Attendees were urged to take and sign cards that pledged: "I, [name], commit to encourage 10 friends to get tested for HIV. HIV is a serious issue, and if we band together we can do something about it."

The impetus for the drive was Florida's "Out in the Open" report, released late last year. It found that at least one in 22 MSM in the state has HIV/AIDS. In Palm Beach County, the report estimated that at least one in 13 black MSM is HIV-infected.

Chris Larcharite, the HIV prevention manager for Compass, the county's gay and lesbian community center, said those figures likely underestimate the situation in Palm Beach County. The data, he said, are based on an estimate more likely to be true in dense urban areas like Miami and Fort Lauderdale, where one in 10 men is MSM. The number of HIV-infected gay or bisexual men probably represents a larger percentage of the total in the county. He believes as many as one in every seven black MSM in the county is living with the virus.

Larcharite and Lorenzo Robertson, the county's regional AIDS coordinator, noted many of these men are not getting tested. "Stigma and denial still play a large part in why black and Hispanic [MSM] are disproportionately affected by the epidemic," said Robertson, who is also the state's outreach coordinator for black MSM.

Surveys show that people who have not been tested for HIV are more likely to be afraid to find out whether they have the virus or do not consider themselves to be at risk. Rob Scott, early intervention specialist at the county health department, said that for people who do not believe they are at risk, routine testing is all the more important.

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