Medicine2

“Current epidemiologic evidence identifies several groups in the United States with an increased risk of developing AIDS (3-7). Most cases have been reported among homosexual men with multiple sexual partners, intravenous drug abusers and Haitians, especially those who have arrived in the country in recent years.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC was originally founded in 1946 to ensure the control of malaria in the post-war period. The agency maintains field offices in 49 states. The director from 1983 to 1989 was James O. Mason.

Other epidemics have also resulted in BIPoC or people from the Global South being stigmatized. As HIV/AIDS spread in the early 1980s, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under Director James O. Mason, issued a statement classifying Haitians as a high-risk group for HIV/AIDS. The claim was later withdrawn, but the consequences were fatal. The origins of this can be traced back to erroneous scientific assumptions. In 1992, the CDC again issued a warning that Haitian refugees could pose an "unjustifiable threat to the health of the United States"(Washington Post, August 7, 1992). In 2007, another study was published linking HIV to Haiti, stating that "subtype B probably migrated from Africa to Haiti around 1966" and then on to the United States. They base this hypothesis on virus sequences from only five (!) Haitian Americans who contracted AIDS in 1981 and who came to the United States "after 1975". This stigmatization has had far-reaching effects, including social isolation, discrimination in health care and everyday life, and a negative impact on the entire Haitian community in the United States.

*The Guardian (Edna Bonhomme), 22.02.2021:"From HIV to Covid, pandemics show us fear of disease is colored by prejudice"

1983