Do Whites and Blacks differ in per capita rate of sexually transmitted disease infection?

I'm trying to understand the extent of the differences between the races in regard to the frequency of sexually transmitted disease. At this moment, I am not concerned with the social significance of those differences. I am asking only about their existence and, if they exist, about their magnitude.

It might be helpful to know the per capita rate ratios (Black to White) for infections with HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes. Does anyone with ready access to such data have these ratios at their fingertips? I'd like to familiarize myself with that information.

Also, it would be interesting to discover whether the per capita infection rate ratios observed in the United States are typical of similar ratios worldwide.

I found some interesting statistics for anybody who wants to research this subject.

Gonorrhea.
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...

Syphilis.
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...

Chlamydia.
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...
http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/tables/tabl...

Yes, there is a very substantial difference. Blacks have per capita rates for every sexually transmitted disease that exceed those of Whites by more than a factor of ten.

For AIDS, the per capita rate ratio, Black to White, for HIV infection was 18.6 for heterosexual males and 18.3 for females, in 2004.

Source: "Cases of HIV Infection" - Table 9, "Estimated numbers of persons living with HIV infection (not AIDS), by race/ethnicity, sex, transmission category, and age category, 2001鈥?004鈥?5 areas with confidential name-based HIV infection reporting", Centers for Disease Control, published in 2006. (Link below.)

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillan...

Blacks are 31.1 times more likely to be infected with syphilis and 44.0 times more likely to be infected with gonorrhea, as compared with Whites. (Source: "Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance 1997"; prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of STD Prevention; published September 1998.)

Leftists will often try to obscure the significance of the higher Black rate of STD infections by saying something like: "This disease is a virus; it doesn't care what race you are; it just wants to infect you." Which, of course, side-steps the point. The leftists' argument is like saying it's just as safe to drive home drunk as sober because an auto accident doesn't care how much alcohol you have in your blood, a high speed collision will kill you regardless. The point isn't what will happen to you if you get a sexually transmitted disease; the point is the probability of being infected with it.

Leftists will also frequently allege that the reason Blacks have AIDS, and gonorrhea, and syphilis, and herpes so very much more often than Whites do is due to their being financially poor. It's nonsense. Being poor does not increase your odds of getting an STD. Being stupid, or being lascivious, or being undisciplined... those qualities certainly might have something to do with it. But being poor? No. Hardly. The Black per capita rate of STD infection is still stupendously higher than that of *equally poor* White people.

Yes, racial disparities exist in the incidence and prevalence of STDs. As you know, those disparities are largely based in socioeconomic inequities. But as you reuqested, I'm not here to expound on those inequities.

Instead, check out the CDC surveillance report for the reportable STDs http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats/trends2006....
They break it down by age, gender and race.

The reports for international morbidity are not nearly as clear-cut because many countries simply don't have the public health and epidemiological infrastructure to reliably collect that kind of data. However, if you look for individual countries, you can usually find some data. You might want to stick to countries as diverse as the US, though, unless you want to see how acculturation and economics affect STD morbidity for certain groups (i.e., how do blacks and whites in South Africa compare to blacks and whites in the US and Canada?)