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Why 8 Times Higher AIDS rates in Blacks vs. Whites?

The CDC data (See http://www.libchrist.com/std/98NewRpt.html) shows we are in a five year decline in numbers of new cases and it is clear that HIV is very rare in non IV drug using heterosexual males since HIV is so very difficult for males to get from heterosexual sex, but why is HIV so racist? Why is AIDS not an Equal Opportunity Disease?

Here is one possible answer: Genetics
According to genetic research Caucasians have a gene that obliterates the HIV receptor on lumphoid cells, leading to strong resistance against HIV and AIDS. Africans have no such gene.

See The American Journal of Human Genetics
Volume 62 Number 6 June 1998  article at
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v62n6/970785/970785.html

Summary from article:
The CCR5-32 deletion obliterates the CCR5 chemokine and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)1 coreceptor on lymphoid cells, leading to strong resistance against HIV-1 infection and AIDS. A genotype survey of 4,166 individuals revealed a cline of CCR5-32 allele frequencies of 0%-14% across Eurasia, whereas the variant is absent among native African, American Indian, and East Asian ethnic groups. Haplotype analysis of 192 Caucasian chromosomes revealed strong linkage disequilibrium between CCR5 and two microsatellite loci. By use of coalescence theory to interpret modern haplotype genealogy, we estimate the origin of the CCR5-32containing ancestral haplotype to be 700 years ago, with an estimated range of 275-1,875 years. The geographic cline of CCR5-32 frequencies and its recent emergence are consistent with a historic strong selective event (e.g., an epidemic of a pathogen that, like HIV-1, utilizes CCR5), driving its frequency upward in ancestral Caucasian populations.

The data reported here and elsewhere (Ansari-Lari et al. 1997; Carrington et al. 1997; Martinson et al. 1997; O'Brien and Dean 1997; Libert et al. 1998) provide indirect but persuasive evidence for the recent unique occurrence of a deletion mutation in the CCR5 locus that mediates host response to HIV. The CCR5-32 allele, which leads to abolishment of the CCR5 function, occurs exclusively among Caucasians and describes a north-to-south geographic cline with a high frequency of 14% among Swedes to 5% among Mediterranean peoples to 0% among Saudi and East Asian (and article later states none found in African) populations. The CCR5-32 allele is retained in a 0.9-cM haplotype on chromosome 3 that has persisted in linkage disequilibrium in human populations for 700 years.

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