New Orleans Ministers’ HIV Testing Campaign Helps Address Stigma in Black Community, Editorial Says

The seven New Orleans black ministers who participated in the Clergy Community HIV Testing Day earlier this week are "helping to remove the fear and stigma that prevents people from learning their HIV status," a New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial says. According to the editorial, the ministers broke "what they described as the black church's silence on HIV/AIDS" when they publically took HIV tests in front of their congregations and "urg[ed] congregants to do likewise." Sixty-three percent of the newly diagnosed HIV cases in New Orleans last year were among blacks, the editorial says. Early prevention is a "critical message, especially for" blacks, the editorial says, concluding that the ministers' "actions spoke volumes to a vulnerable population" (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 8/27).