A surprisingly
high number of African-Americans and Latinos living in
Texas still hold conspiracy beliefs about HIV, chiefly that
the virus was specifically designed by government
officials to kill minorities and that a cure for AIDS
exists but is being kept secret, Reuters Health reports.
Reporting in the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes, researchers said that of 441
African-American Texans surveyed, 27.3% of black men
and 31.2% of black women believe HIV was designed to
kill minorities; of 456 Latinos surveyed, 21.4% of men
and 23.8% of women believe in AIDS genocide theories. There
was no association between education level and belief
in the conspiracy theory, according to the study.
Holding such
beliefs likely leads to lower rates of safer sex among
minorities, particularly the use of condoms for high-risk
sex acts, said the researchers. "If people think that
HIV is caused by an external locus of control, then
they will not think that infection is caused by
personal behaviors," study coauthor E. James Essien told
Reuters Health. "They believe their own actions do not
matter."
Essien called for
"educational intervention programs developed in a
culturally sensitive manner, directly relevant to things
that are happening in the particular culture." (The
Advocate)