Washington Post Mischaracterized HIV/AIDS Among Hispanics, Letter to Editor Says

A recent Washington Post story about HIV/AIDS and Hispanics in the U.S. "mistakenly characterized" the disease among the population as a "simmering public health crisis," Jane Delgado, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, writes in a Post letter to the editor. She adds that "since the first days of the epidemic, Hispanics have been overrepresented among AIDS cases." In addition, the article was "wrong to focus almost exclusively on immigrants, as most Hispanics with AIDS are U.S.-born," according to Delgado. "Moreover, Hispanic leaders responded to the AIDS crisis from the very beginning," Delgado writes, adding, "Our own efforts at the National Alliance for Hispanic Health and those of community agencies attest to a history of commitment and care." The "real story is decades of inadequate response from" CDC and the "U.S. health system to HIV/AIDS in the Hispanic community," Delgado writes, concluding that this response has "allowed almost 100,000 Hispanics to die and new cases to continue to appear" (Delgado, Washington Post, 7/28).

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