(Adds detail on CDC funding in paragraph 9) By Matthew Bigg ATLANTA, March 8 (Reuters) - Black men in the United States are nearly seven times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than their white counterparts, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released on Thursday. Blacks represent 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for nearly half of Americans living with the disease, and 40 percent of AIDS deaths and 61 percent of all new diagnoses of people aged 13-24 are black, the CDC said. The report, which is based on 2001-2005 data, does not reveal a dramatic increase in the rate of HIV infection among blacks and it shows a significant decline in black mother-to-child transmission of HIV. But it cements a picture of an epidemic that disproportionately affects the black community, said Robert Janssen, director of the CDC's division of HIV/AIDS prevention. "What is beginning to happen is a recognition of the severity of the problem," Janssen said in an interview. "Black men particularly are hard-hit. The HIV diagnosis rate among black men is seven times higher than among white men," he said, adding that men who have sex with men account for around half of those cases. In Philadelphia and Washington, some 3 percent of blacks are living with AIDS, a rate higher than Senegal's and on par with Cameroon in central Africa, he said. Blacks do not engage in riskier sexual behavior than other groups, Janssen said, but high HIV infection rates mean blacks who have sex with other blacks are more likely to get HIV than people within other ethnic groups. Federal allocations to the CDC for directly funding community organizations to fight AIDS in the black community have increased 10-fold since 1988 and now stand at $30 million while total program funding is $300 million, the CDC said. Janssen said the agency was expanding prevention services, increasing opportunities for diagnoses, encouraging all blacks to know their HIV status and developing new interventions. As part of that effort, the CDC organized a meeting for black community leaders on Thursday. "NOT IN MY FAMILY" Black leaders have been criticized for being slower to mobilize against HIV and AIDS than leaders of other groups such as gay whites. Janssen said the stigma over sexual issues within the black community had been damaging. "Certainly (there is) a sense of stigma related to homophobia. There is certainly a stigma around how HIV is transmitted. There has not been a recognition in the community of how serious the problem is," he said. The reasons for this lack of leadership are complex, said Ivory Brown, a black entertainment, sports and family lawyer who has written about the issue. "There is a silence. I don't want to say the African-American community is not an open community. We are more prone to adopt people and issues that are cast-offs to the rest of society," she said. "I don't believe that ... our religion makes our people homophobic. What I do believe is that a lack of education and information makes it is easier for our community to turn a blind eye to the problem," she said. Brown contributed to "Not In My Family," a book in which dozens of black celebrities, politicians, civil rights leaders, academics and others write about AIDS.
