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For many years, HIV surveillance data from the CDC have demonstrated excess mortality risk among people of color. Although such disparities are often attributed to differential access to healthcare, data presented at the 15th Retrovirus Conference indicate that other factors must be at play.
In a large U.S. military cohort with free access to comprehensive healthcare, 1031 HIV-infected patients initiated antiretroviral therapy (ART) between 1996 and 2006 [Abstract 809]. Initial treatment regimens were similar between blacks and whites, as was the proportion of patients who changed or discontinued their initial regimens. Nonetheless, in a multivariate analysis, blacks were half as likely as whites to achieve undetectable viral loads (<400 cop…