“Some alarming, awe-inspiring, news today out of Washington, D.C., and no, it’s not Trent Lott’s resignation. The results of a study, the first of its kind, of HIV cases in the nation’s capital are out, and they show that AIDS has reached ‘epidemic’ proportions in D.C. In the five-year test period in question, ending in 2006, while African-Americans comprise roughly 60 percent of the city’s population, they account for more than 80 percent of the more than 3,000 HIV cases that have been identified. Ninety percent of women residents who tested positive for the disease are African-American. And, nearly 40 percent of reported cases were among heterosexuals showing, in the words of a District administrator, that ‘HIV is everybody’s disease’ in D.C. The presence of an epidemic of this magnitude so close to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can’t help but make one wonder if federal policy, or non-policy is at the nucleus of this health catastrophe.” (11/27/07)