Center for Disease Control and Prevention

A lantern lighting ceremony is planned here for Monday, December 2nd, (today) to honor those who are living with or have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.

The annual ceremony is hosted by the Shelby County Health Department’s (SCHD) Ryan White Program, a federal program that establishes a comprehensive system of HIV/AIDS support services around the country. It begins at 5:30 p.m. at Beale Street Landing.

The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 38,832 people were diagnosed with HIV in the United States during 2018. The CDC also reported that as many as one in seven people in the country unknowingly have the virus.

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CDC data showed that in 2018, more than half of all the HIV diagnoses in the country occurred in the South, 47 percent of HIV-related deaths were in the South, and 46 percent of all people in the country living with HIV were Southerners.

In a report earlier this year, the CDC said the South experiences “the greatest burden of HIV and deaths of any U.S. region.” The CDC also said the South “lags behind in providing quality HIV prevention services and care. Closing these gaps is essential to the health of people in the region and to our nation’s long-term success in ending the HIV epidemic.”

CDC

The CDC attributes the high number of HIV diagnoses in the South to socioeconomic factors like poverty and unemployment, as well as barriers such as a lack of health insurance.

In Tennessee, the Tennessee Health Department reports that 713 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2017 and 17,522 Tennesseans were living with diagnosed HIV that year. The SCHD estimates that in 2018, 6,600 residents of Shelby County were living with HIV.

TDH

The SCHD advises that members of the public get tested and know their HIV status. Free testing will be offered at Monday’s ceremony.

Here are a few places around town that provide HIV testing, counseling, case management, or other support services:

• Parker Clinic, 814 Jefferson

• Cawthon Public Health, 1000 Haynes

• Memphis Health Center, 260 E. E.H. Crump

• Choices, 1726 Poplar

• Friends for Life, 43 N. Cleveland

• Planned Parenthood, 2430 Poplar

• LeBonheur Community HIV Network, 848 Adams

• OUTMemphis, 892 Cooper

• Christ Community Health Services, multiple locations

PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Tennessee ranks 34th in the nation in funding programs to protect kids from tobacco, according to a national report released today by a coalition of public health organizations.

Tennessee currently spends $10 million a year on tobacco prevention programs, which is 31 percent of the minimum amount of $32.2 million recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year, Tennessee ranked last in the nation, spending nothing on tobacco prevention.

The report’s key findings for Tennessee include:

— Tobacco companies spend more than $406 million a year on marketing in
Tennessee. This is more than 40 times what the state spends on tobacco
prevention.

— Tennessee this year will collect $511.5 million from the tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 2 percent of it on tobacco prevention.

Earlier this year, the state Legislature approved a plan proposed by Governor Phil Bredesen to allocate $10 million for programs to keep kids from smoking and help smokers quit, a historic move for a state that has no history of spending money on tobacco prevention. Bredesen also proposed and the legislature approved a new smoke-free workplace law and a 42-cent increase in the state cigarette tax.

Said William V. Corr,
Executive Director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: “Despite this
progress, Tennessee still spends less than a third of the CDC’s recommended
minimum for tobacco prevention. It’s critical that Tennessee build on its
progress because tobacco companies are spending huge sums to market their
deadly and addictive products. Tobacco prevention is an important investment
that protects kids, saves lives and saves money for taxpayers by reducing
tobacco-related health care costs.”

Nine years after the 1998 state tobacco settlement, the report finds that the states this year have increased total funding for tobacco prevention programs by 20 percent, to $717.2 million. But most states still fail to fund tobacco prevention programs at minimum levels recommended by the CDC, and altogether, the states are providing less than half what the CDC recommends.

Only three states — Maine, Delaware and Colorado — currently fund tobacco prevention programs at CDC minimum levels.