Marvelyn Brown: HIV/AIDS Awareness
Nashville, TN – Marvelyn was flattered when the guy she was sleeping with didn’t want to use protection. That turned to horror when she tested positive for HIV. When she contracted the virus, she also got the stigma that came along with it -- even her family made her use paper plates and plastic forks! But instead of letting this break her, for the past six years Marvelyn has been using her experiences to educate young people about the disease and the stereotypes that persist 30 years after HIV/AIDS was first reported. “We exist in a world where we continue to define the disease as only affecting people with a certain look or belonging to a certain socioeconomic group. I’m living proof that nothing is farther from the truth.”
About AIDS/HIV
America seems to have gone quiet about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. Organizations and celebrities have focused their efforts on HIV/AIDS in Africa (where the epidemic is certainly an urgent health problem), but the virus is also a crisis stateside. African Americans in particular are affected more than other races and ethnicities. While blacks account for 13% of the U.S. population, they make up 50% of AIDS cases. Among black women, the numbers are even more frightening:
- There are a reported 58,000 new cases of HIV each year.
- At least half of all new infections are among people under the age of 25.
- Nearly 70% of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the U.S. are black women.
