Sources say the CDC, headed by Dr. Julie Gerberding, is leaning against releasing news of rising HIV infection rates on World AIDS Day. Instead, one source says the agency is planning to wait until the holidays, when ‘the fewest possible people will be paying attention.’ (Photo by Haraz Ghanbari/AP)
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LOU CHIBBARO JR
Friday, November 16, 2007
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is mulling over when to release alarming new statistics showing that as many as 50 percent more people are being infected with HIV each year in the United States than originally reported by the government.
According to AIDS advocacy groups familiar with the CDC, middle level officials at the disease prevention agency have quietly confided in colleagues in professional and scientific circles that the number of new HIV infections now appears to be as high as 58,000 to 63,000 cases in the most recent 12-month period.
On its web site this week, the CDC left unchanged its longstanding estimate that about 40,000 Americans per year become infected with HIV, a figure it says has remained “relatively stable” for most of the past decade.
CDC officials have told leaders of AIDS advocacy groups that the new figures are being withheld while they are subjected to a rigorous peer review process by an unidentified scientific journal, which is expected to publish the findings within the next few months.
Others familiar with the CDC have said CDC would likely publish the new data in its own journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
“It seems to be a poorly kept secret,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “Everybody who has dealings with the CDC is talking about it.”
CDC spokesperson Jennifer Ruth said CDC “is currently working to develop new estimates of HIV incidence, based on a new system that distinguishes recent infections from longstanding infections.”
There is no timeline for release of that data, she said, adding that it would not be available before World AIDS Day.
The other set of data in the works is next year’s HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, which includes data on HIV and AIDS diagnoses, she said. The 2006 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report also will not be available before World AIDS Day but will likely be released in the coming months.
“Until the data are finalized and confirmed through the normal scientific review process, neither CDC, nor anyone outside the agency, knows what the data will show,” Ruth added.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, of which the CDC is a part, announced earlier this week that top HHS officials would discuss the current “state of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States” on a live webcast on Friday, Nov. 16. Among those scheduled to participate in the webcast were Dr. Anthony Fauci, top AIDS researcher for the National Institutes of Health; and Kevin Fenton, director of HHS’s National Center for HIV/AIDS. The event was set to take place between 2 and 3 p.m. EST.
Christopher Bates, the gay acting director of the HHS Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, was to be the moderator of the webcast, and potential viewers were invited to send in questions in advance by e-mail. Bates could not be reached for comment for this story.
It could not be determined by Wednesday whether any of the officials participating in the webcast would disclose information about reports of the higher CDC numbers for new HIV cases.
Two sources familiar with the CDC, who spoke on condition that they not be identified, said CDC officials have said privately that the higher numbers of HIV cases appear to be driven by more rigorous and accurate HIV reporting by the states of existing cases rather than by an actual increase in the number of new cases.
New federal rules requiring states to keep track of the names of everyone who tests positive for HIV took effect in most states in January. The new rules came at the same time the CDC announced an initiative calling for widespread HIV testing of most adults in the United States during routine doctor visits as well as hospital emergency room visits.
Although mandatory reporting rules have been in place for AIDS cases since the beginning of the epidemic in the early 1980s, mandatory reporting for HIV cases did not begin until recently. In past years, CDC officials have said they based their estimate on the number of new HIV infections on projections and extrapolations from the number of full blown AIDS cases as well as HIV cases obtained by a sampling of hospitals, clinics, and anonymous testing sites, among other places.
During the past two years, AIDS activists have criticized the Bush administration for expanding a large portion of its AIDS prevention budget on HIV testing while declining to provide more funds for HIV prevention and education programs targeting groups at high risk for HIV infection.
Gay and AIDS activists have complained that the administration appears to have acquiesced to demands by conservative religious groups for higher funding levels for abstinence-only until marriage prevention efforts. The activists say the administration has not been aggressive enough in funding prevention programs that specifically target men who have sex with men, the group that CDC data show accounts for the highest number of HIV cases in the U.S.
“My view is it’s both better data collection and increased testing as well as a higher rate of [HIV] conversion that is causing the spike in the CDC numbers,” said David Reznik, the head of an HIV dental clinic in Atlanta, Ga., and former member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
“However, our prevention messages aren’t reaching those at most risk,” Reznik said. “And I believe it’s time to rethink our prevention strategy.”
Carl Schmid, federal affairs director for the Tampa, Fla. based AIDS Institute, which lobbies for expanded AIDS programs, said reports about the higher CDC numbers of new HIV infections have been circulating in Washington for the past six months.
“I’m hearing rumors of figures higher than 60,000 new cases,” Schmid said. “I hear they are talking about this with state health departments.”
Schmid and Weinstein said behind-the-scenes talk about the new CDC figures for HIV cases appeared to be a popular topic among many of the 4,000 participants in last week’s U.S. Conference on AIDS in Palm Springs, Calif. The National Minority AIDS Council organizes the conference each year.
Schmid said the AIDS Institute has joined other AIDS advocacy groups in calling on the CDC and the Bush administration to boost funding for HIV prevention programs.
“There has been a de-emphasis of anything gay by the administration,” he said. “They have focused mostly on testing, which is fine. But you still need education and prevention programs, and you have not seen an increase in funding for that.”
Jim Driscoll, a Washington adviser to the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and another former member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, known as PACHA, said he has heard from people familiar with the CDC that officials were considering releasing the new figures on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1.
“But the word we’re hearing now is they’re leaning against releasing such bad news on World AIDS Day,” said Driscoll. “There’s some talk of them releasing the new figures during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when the fewest possible people will be paying attention.”
Information about how to view the HHS webcast can be obtained through this site: http://www.aids.gov/webcast_information.html.
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