The CBC "Message to America" is distributed nationwide to the American Urban Radio Network's (AURN) affiliate stations.

            WHO:        U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA)

            WHEN:      Saturday, October 7, 2006; 12:06 p.m. EST

            WHERE:   American Urban Radio Network Affiliate Stations

"Hello, I am Congresswoman Maxine Waters and I represent the 35th Congressional District of California.

"Last week, I joined several Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to get tested for HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. I sat down at a table in a mobile testing unit. The woman sitting across from me asked me a few questions. She assured me that the results would be kept confidential. She then pulled a swab out of a package and rubbed it on the inside of my mouth. I had my results in 20 minutes.

"I was tested, and now I want to stress to you the urgent need for you to get tested and to learn your HIV status. And don't think for a second that it can't happen to you - that you are somehow immune to this disease. It's time for African Americans to take our heads out of the sand and to confront the spread of HIV/AIDS head on.

"Let me give you a reality check. African-Americans are only 12.3 percent of the American population, but we make up 50 percent of new HIV/AIDS cases. African-American women account for 70 percent of new HIV/AIDS cases among U.S. women.

"Since the first case of HIV was diagnosed 25 years ago, African Americans have accounted for 40 percent of all AIDS cases in the US and it has claimed the lives of more than 201,000 African Americans. That means AIDS has killed approximately 22 African Americans everyday for the last 25 years.

"In addition to being tested, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are looking at the techniques currently being used to conduct HIV/AIDS outreach and the numerous ways they have failed African Americans. We will be pushing to get funding for programs that will provide education, outreach, testing and other services in our communities.

"We will attack the disease through public policy. In fact, I recently introduced legislation in Congress that will require inmates to be tested for HIV upon entering and again when they are released from federal prisons.

"We will be calling on you to do your part. Every person listening to this broadcast must take personal responsibility for their own life. That means our community must embrace monogamy, safe sex and abstinence. Assume that every person with whom you have sex is HIV positive and protect yourself. Bring your own condom or simply abstain from having sex until you are in a committed relationship.

"Additionally, we must get our family members and friends into treatment facilities and help them break their addictions to drugs, especially IV drugs. Sex and IV drug use are the primary ways that the majority of African Americans are contracting HIV.

"African Americans contract HIV at rates much higher than whites and Hispanics, and when we become infected, the disease kills us faster. The bottom line it that our people have survived so much, and our ability to endure and to conquer adversity is embedded in our genes.

"I want you to know that I care about each and every one of you out there, and while I am working with the Congressional Black Caucus and other leaders to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS and to get funds for outreach, education and treatment, I need you to do your part.

"Protect yourself. Our community needs you. We need your talent and your ideas. We need your hopes and your dreams. Protect yourself because we need you."