Petrelis Files

March 29, 2005

Joshua Brustein
Gotham Gazette

Dear Mr. Brustein:

Thank you for agreeing to run a correction about your erroneous reporting on HIV stats in New York City.

In your March 29 story, AIDS in New York City, the following incorrect claim was reported:

> In 2003, there were more new HIV diagnoses in New York City than the year before, a reversal of the drastic decline in AIDS infections that began in the mid 1990s. < (Source: http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20050328/200/1361 )

In an email from you yesterday, you explained where you got the data to make the claim that you did. You said,
"The HIV Epidemiology Program published by the NYC Department of Health in January 2005 states that 4,205 New Yorkers were diagnosed with HIV in 2003.

"The same report from one year earlier reported that 4,170 New Yorkers were diagnosed with the disease in 2002.

"While this rise is slight, the turnaround in the decline of new infections was something
that the activists I spoke with cited as a concern."

I was grateful you provided me with the links to your sources: January 2005,
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/pdf/dires/dires-2005-report-qtr1.pdf and January 2004,
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/doh/pdf/dires/dires-2004-report-qtr1.pdf .

This was my reply to you.

In 2002 there were a total of 5552 HIV/AIDS diagnoses. For HIV diagnoses the city recorded 4170. And for HIV diagnoses with AIDS the number was 1382.

The 2003 figure for HIV/AIDS diagnoses was 4205. There were 3155 HIV diagnoses without AIDS reported. The number of HIV diagnoses with AIDS was 1050.

These numbers come from page 3 of the reports from the links you sent.

It seems you may have taken the HIV without AIDS number for 2002, which was 4170, and compared it with the number of both HIV/AIDS diagnoses for 2003, which was 4205.

I am pleased you wrote back saying, "I will be fixing it today, and we will issue a correction in our daily email edition tomorrow, as well as posting one on our corrections page."

Rare is the reporter who looks at New York City quarterly HIV surveillance reports and writes about them, and you are the first journalist to do so, for which I congratulate you. Okay, so you made a mistake in interpreting some HIV stats. The important thing about that is you've quickly and graciously moved to correct the error. Just reporting on the most current HIV stats is something no other reporter has done.

I look forward to reading your correction tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA