The idea that Aids was created as part of a US government-led conspiracy to decimate the African American population remains salient to a significant minority of black people, according to qualitative research.
Aidsmap reports that the researcher, Jacob Heller argues that such rumours and narratives are the product of a deep-seated feeling of distrust towards the government, born out of African American people’s history, and are therefore particularly difficult to change. People holding these beliefs are unlikely to be reassured by factual information from sources they consider to be untrustworthy.
Heller’s sociological study was based on two sources of data. Firstly, newspaper articles, blogs, television shows, comedy routines and other media that made reference to HIV/Aids rumours or conspiracy narratives. Secondly, six focus groups conducted at a college in New York state in which all participants were of the same ethnic group – either white, African American or Hispanic. As a research methodology, focus groups can shed light on the shared understandings of people who belong to the same social group as well as the manner in which individuals are influenced by their peers.
There were marked differences in the discussions which took place in the different focus groups. Conspiracy theories and rumours rarely came up in the white and Hispanic groups. But Heller noted a recurring theme in African American discussion of HIV and Aids, found both in the public discourse and during his focus groups.
For example, in 1992 the film director Spike Lee said: "I'm convinced Aids is a government-engineered disease. They got one thing wrong, they never realised it couldn't just be contained to the groups it was intended to wipe out. So now it's a national priority. Exactly like drugs became when they escaped the urban centres into White suburbia."
In one of the African American focus groups, conducted in 2012, one woman said: "I heard that (the government) took people, Black people, gay people, and made them do research… experiments, and said, 'You guys will get paid for this' and actually they're given the virus."
The researcher noted the "remarkable durability" of this narrative over at least a twenty year period. The country's government, the principle institution charged with tackling HIV and Aids, is instead blamed for the creation of the disease and ascribed genocidal motives.
He notes numerous other instances of public discussion of these ideas, frequently but not only in the earlier years of the epidemic. The Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan described Aids as a 'race-targeting' weapon intended to kill African Americans; an aide to the mayor of Chicago was fired after stating that Jewish doctors were infecting African American infants with Aids; and mainstream celebrities Will Smith and Bill Crosby lent credence to the idea of Aids being man-made.
Moreover the ideas were still prevalent in the 2012 African American focus groups. In particular, they had an impact on acceptance of HIV prevention work. For example, needle exchange programmes were sometimes understood as promoting drug use in black communities or as providing contaminated materials. Similarly it was suggested that the condoms distributed for free could be faulty or could have had holes poked in them.
Focus group members expressed scepticism about HIV treatments and the healthcare that is available to them. When asked about Magic Johnson, the basketball star who is the most prominent African American living with HIV, many felt that his wealth had given him access to special medical treatment. Several respondents believed that Magic Johnson had received a "cure", something that pharmaceutical companies were withholding from ordinary people.
The author notes that while it is usually assumed that there is a simple relationship between scientific knowledge, education, behaviour change and reduced infection rates, this can only work if people trust official sources of information. Moreover, previous studies in the US and South Africa have shown that people who accept conspiracy beliefs are less likely to use condoms, test for HIV, or adhere to HIV treatment.
He argues that rather than seeing conspiracy beliefs as evidence of ignorance, or as something which could be corrected with factual education, they are better understood as signs of profound social and historical problems. "The source of conspiracy theory rumours about the origins of HIV/Aids within the African American community, as with any rumours, is not ignorance, but distrust combined with high social anxiety," he says.
Specifically, the salience of these narratives is related to African American people's history, including slavery, denial of civil rights, incidents of abuse by medical professionals, inadequate health services and the very high prevalence of HIV in African American people.
[link url="http://www.aidsmap.com/African-American-peoples-AIDS-conspiracy-beliefs-best-understood-in-terms-of-social-anxiety-and-distrust-not-ignorance/page/2940657/"]Full Aidsmap report[/link]
[link url="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284"]American Journal of Public Health abstract[/link]
[link url="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/23192564_Endorsement_of_a_genocidal_HIV_conspiracy_as_a_barrier_to_HIV_testing_in_South_Africa"]Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes abstract[/link]