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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 12, 1993                   TAG: 9301120213
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

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COMMISSION: SPREAD OF AIDS A RACIAL ISSUE

AIDS disproportionately afflicts minorities, and the disease has to be considered as a racial issue because its spread is spurred by discrimination, the National Commission on AIDS said Monday.

In a report to the White House, the advisory commission said black and Hispanic people now account for 46 percent of the nation's AIDS cases and dealing with the epidemic is being hampered by discrimination, poverty and the lack of health services.

The commission, whose 12 voting members include one black and one Hispanic person, said the battle against AIDS could be lost if prevention and treatment programs aimed at ethnic groups are not reinforced.

Several commission members said at a briefing that to cope with the epidemic the ethnic nature of the disease in the United States needs to emphasized, despite the risk that white people may start seeing AIDS as a minority disease that afflicts "other" people and not themselves.

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