ABCNews To Air ‘Out of Control: AIDS in Black America’ Featuring Peter Jennings
ABCNews' "Primetime" on Thursday at 10 p.m. ET will air the documentary special, "Out of Control: AIDS in Black America," which includes an appearance by anchor Peter Jennings, who died in 2005, the Hollywood Reporter/Reuters reports (Pedersen, Hollywood Reporter/Reuters, 8/22). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 49% of new AIDS diagnoses occur among blacks, who represent 13% of the U.S. population. In addition, according to CDC, 46% of black men who have sex with men are living with HIV. Two-thirds of U.S. teenagers between ages 13 and 19 who are HIV-positive are black (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 8/16). The documentary examines how HIV transmission rates among incarcerated men, heterosexual transmission of HIV and the stigma of homosexuality and bisexuality contribute to the spread of the virus in the U.S. black community. It is the last piece of original reporting from Jennings that will appear on U.S. television, according to Tom Yellin, president and executive producer of The Documentary Group, the successor to Jennings' production company PJ Productions. Jennings is shown halfway through the documentary conducting a discussion with HIV-positive black men, AP/Seattle Times reports (Bauder, AP/Seattle Times, 8/21). The segment was taped 10 days before Jennings' diagnosis with cancer, and ABCNews reporter Terry Moran completed the project (Hollywood Reporter/Reuters, 8/22). "Out of Control" includes interviews with the Rev. Calvin Butts, senior pastor at Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City and chair of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS; Debra Fraser-Howze, president of the NBLCA; Jim Thomas, a physician at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Phill Wilson, executive director of the Black AIDS Institute; and HIV-positive black U.S. residents (ABCNews release, 8/10).
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