(Los Angeles, CA) -- The United States leads the global response to HIV/AIDS, but fails to mobilize the same commitment to address the large and growing epidemic within its own borders, finds a new report released today by the Black AIDS Institute. "Left Behind! Black America: A Neglected Priority in the Global AIDS Epidemic" praises the United States for it vital efforts to address HIV worldwide, but criticizes the government's profoundly inadequate response to the epidemic within its own borders, where Black Americans are most severely affected by the disease.

"More Black Americans are infected with HIV than the total populations of people living with HIV in seven of the 15 countries served by PEPFAR," noted Phill Wilson, CEO of the Black AIDS Institute and one of the authors of the report, referring to the U.S. government’s program of extraordinary aid for countries severely impacted by the epidemic. "Were Black America a separate country, it would elicit major concern and extensive assistance from the U.S. government. Instead, the national response to AIDS among Black Americans has been lethargic and often neglectful."

"Left Behind!" illustrates a clear and startling gap between the U.S. government’s appropriate concern about AIDS overseas, and its ongoing denial of the epidemic at home – despite the fact that, in areas of the United States such as Detroit, Newark, New York, Washington D.C. and the Deep South, HIV levels among segments of the Black community approach those of many severely affected countries in Africa. For example, HIV prevalence among middle-aged Black men in Manhattan is almost as high as overall prevalence in South Africa, home to the world’s largest population of people living with HIV.

The report points out that, while the U.S. government requires countries receiving PEPFAR support have a national AIDS strategy in place, the United States itself has no strategy for its own epidemic, and was one of 40 countries that failed to fulfill its commitment to report to the Joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on its response to AIDS at home. At the same time that the United States has dramatically, and appropriately scaled up funding for AIDS overseas, it has simultaneously cut real spending for domestic HIV prevention and care initiatives – even as HIV caseloads in Black America have risen sharply.

"U.S. policy treats AIDS as a foreign policy priority, but virtually ignores the epidemic among Black citizens here at home," said Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and CEO of the National Action Network (NAN). "U.S. policy makers seem to be much more interested in the epidemic in Botswana than the epidemic in Louisiana. This is an unnecessary and deadly choice. Both need urgent attention."