http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=apQjcdOCLfmQ Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- A long-awaited government study of annual HIV infection rates in the U.S. won't be given out before early next year, even as AIDS activists pressure federal officials to speed release of the data.
Some AIDS researchers and patient advocates say the study may show that annual infection rates are as much as 50 percent higher than the current estimate of 40,000 new cases a year. The agency said in an e-mailed statement today it anticipates releasing the final results no sooner than early 2008.
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The most recent HIV data were collected in 2005 and should have been available by now, said Rebecca Haag, executive director AIDS Action, a Washington-based advocacy group, in a telephone interview yesterday. The delay suggests the government is trying to cover up its failures in limiting spread of the disease, she said.
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Federal health officials may not want to release the higher infection rate just weeks after the United Nations cut their estimate of the global number of people infected with HIV by about 16 percent to 33.2 million, Haag said. CDC sent a ``Dear Colleague'' letter to government-funded advocacy groups urging them not to discuss the new figures until their formal release, she said.
``They wanted to manage the message,'' she said. ``There's been an attempt to manage what they know is not good news.''
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