Calls for More HIV Education in Mississippi

People living with AIDS, activist and health care professionals are calling on the Obama administration to include more AIDS education in its national strategy to combat the disease. MPB's Lawayne Childrey reports.

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy held a town hall style meeting in Jackson last night. The purpose was to gather input on ways to end the disease.

“There’s still a lot of stigma and just ignorance about HIV.”

ONA Director, Jeffrey Crowley.

“So we’ve heard about healthcare providers not always treating people with HIV appropriately or still a certain level of denial. But we’ve also heard a lot about people really committed to making a difference for their community. So we heard a lot of great suggestions about more HIV education in schools or lots of positive recommendations that we could do to do a better job.”

“Abstinence is something that my mama taught me when I was a little girl but it didn’t work. It doesn’t work.”

About 130 people from around the southeast attended the event including Patrice Jacobs, a health educator at Tugaloo College.

“Because I work with college students I find out that many of them are familiar with STD’s, HIV. But they are in denial. They don’t believe that it can happen to them. They believe that it’s for prostitutes, for drug and alcohol users.”

The sentiment to better educate is being echoed by Craig Thompson, Director of the STV/HIV Prevention Program at the Mississippi Department of Health.

“Our kids are having sex earlier and earlier despite the fact that children between the ages of 15 and 19 account for 7.6% of our population. They account for 40.3% of the Chlamydia in our state. Just say no is fine but what if you decide not to keep saying no? We need to do the rest of our job.”

The Obama administration has proposed that 3/4 of any new sex education funding go towards evidence based programs with a proven track record. 25% would be used to test new ideas that could include abstinence only programs. For MPB News, I'm Lawayne Childrey.