This past week ABC News aired a program “Out of Control” about the status of HIV/AIDS in the black community. The program was indeed an eye opener and a bitter pill to swallow but was, from my perspective, painfully true. Like many realities in the black community regarding health our own behavior has contributed to a bad outcome. We are in need of ALL our resources to deal with what has become the new “Black Plague”. The statement that silence is suicide is so true in our African American community. I can think of countless situations regarding health that we have swept under the rug. HIV/AIDS will not go away on its own. Education, Education, Education to our young men and women needs to be stepped up one hundred fold. While HIV/AIDS in Africa is most tragic HIV/AIDS in Charleston, South Carolina is tragic too. Half of the new HIV/AIDS cases in the U.S. are African American women and 23,000 of these women are dying yearly! The Church always has been and still is the backbone of the Black Community and it is my hope and prayer that our ministers and others in the Church will update themselves on all of the health issues of Black people. We are going to have talk about HIV/AIDS on Sunday and the rest of the week as well. Already we have health ministries in the church that are doing excellent work and I congratulate them but they will have to be more proactive in educating everybody about the new Black Plague. We cannot continue to be silent on issues that are killing us! Encourage your political representative to learn more and do more about this plague that is killing us. Encourage your physician to address you and your community in ways that everyone can understand our health issues. We must create a plan of action! I am Dr. Thaddeus John Bell---Closing the Gap in Health Care.