Focus on Female Cases of AIDS
While my low estimations be both a result of Catholic education and a minimization of the presentation of factual evidence regarding AIDS, rather than impassioned and personalized editorials, my inaccuracy in approximating the percentage of female cases of AIDS can be contributed to the intense focus of The Buffalo News on women as victims of AIDS. My estimation, 75 %, exceeded the percentage of female cases, 26 %, by about 3 times. The prominent illustration of the effects of AIDS on women is perceived in two articles, both of which appeared within 3 months of each other, on female cases. A December 2006 article describes Freda Nall, a 48-year-old-grandmother who “has lived for 15 years with HIV and now full-blown AIDS”, as a “poster child for women living with AIDS in the modern world”. The article delineates Nall as a victim, one who “hides a private life of isolation, depression, and physical challenges” (12). Similarly, a piece in a February 2007 edition of The Buffalo News conveys the life of Kathleen Pratt, described as “the face of HIV”. The article focuses on the “$5,000 worth of medicine each month” that Pratt takes “all to keep the human immunodeficiency virus at bay” (13). This concentration on female cases may be partially due to the fact that in New York, the percentage of newly diagnosed female AIDS cases in 29.6 %, a 7.4 % increase in the percentage of AIDS cases of 2005, 22.2 %.
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