In 1995 more than 500,000 US residents had tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) virus, with 40,000 to 80,000 acquiring it annually.

Low-income racial minorities and women comprised the majority of new infections. Blacks comprised 12 percent of the population and accounted for 30 percent of infectious cases in 1992 alone; Latinos comprised 9 percent of the population and accounted for 17 percent of the cases. Those groups constituted 46 percent of all cases and 54 percent of deaths from AIDS that year. Policy experts are hard put to explain such disparities. Many point to risky behaviors in an underclass predisposed to drugs, sexual promiscuity, and violent crime. AIDS advocates, by contrast, point to discrimination in prevention, treatment, and law enforcement, such as targeting people of color for drug arrests.