Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 09:47:25 EST From: Oliver Subject: AIDS EPIDEMIC AMONG AMERICAN INDIANS """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Jeffery Jones Dept. of Geography, U. of Kentucky JAJONE02@ukcc.uky.edu 1422 POT, Lexington, KY 40506 ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- _________________________________________________________________________ Jeff Jones (JAJONE00@UKCC.UKY.EDU) Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- _________________________________________________________________________ Oliver Froehling Dept. of Geography (606) 257-6992 University of Kentucky ORFROE00@UKCC.UKY.EDU Lexington, KY 40506-0027 ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Original Sender: CUBLDR.Colorado.EDU!leeson_k Mailing List: NATIVE-L (native-l@gnosys.svle.ma.us) Contact: Deward E. Walker, Jr. Department of Anthropology CU-Boulder (303) 492-6719 February 4, 1994 ANTHROPOLOGIST WARNS OF AIDS EPIDEMIC AMONG AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLE Charles Cambridge, an anthropologist and member of the Navaho Tribe, recently completed his dissertation directed by Dr. Deward E. Walker, Jr., professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Cambridge's dissertation is titled: "An Anthropological Study of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Among American Indian Populations" As has happened numerous times in the last 500 years, an Old World disease has been introduced into American Indian populations and, like prior epidemics, threatens to eradicate whole tribes. This disease is known as the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The full impact of this disease among American Indian people is not yet apparent, but it is now spreading rapidly as the virus is rapidly becoming self-perpetuating in Indian communities. Introduction of the AIDS virus into different groups of American Indians has been varied and has resulted in different cultural responses. For example, some Indians infected with the AIDS virus have been greeted with fear, avoidance, and banning. In turn, AIDS infected Indians have turned to traditional healing in attempts to seek a cure not available from Western medical science. Dr. Cambridge's dissertation illustrates the expanding AIDS epidemic among American Indians, with statistical data and with ten individual cases of AIDS infected individuals and makes a number of predictions about the future course of this epidemic. A number of needed reforms are recommended in existing programs of identification, prevention, and treatment of AIDS among American Indians If these reforms are not made the epidemic will continue to run its course, possibly ending in the eradication of large numbers of Indian people and their tribal cultures.. - # -