I'm excited to be back as a regular contributor to Black Voices as we commemorate both Black History Month and National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Sunday, February 7th. This is "Greater Than AIDS," a new monthly column that will run in conjunction with the national Greater Than AIDS movement. Our goal is inform Black people about activities that our community is already engaged in -- and to enlist your support in what we still need to accomplish -- to overcome HIV/AIDS and bring the epidemic to an end.

Black people have been greater than any challenge we have confronted in the past. We were greater than the Middle Passage. We were greater than slavery. We were greater than Reconstruction. We were greater than Jim Crow. And, we will be greater than AIDS as well.

Yet each year more than 56,000 Americans contract HIV -- almost half of whom are Black. Black people account for two-thirds of the infections that occur among women. Among youth, that number rises to 70 percent. Research conducted among young Black gay and bisexual men suggests that about half of them are HIV-positive. And the AIDS rate in our nation's capital is as high as that of many African countries. These are the challenges we face. These are the challenges we cannot afford to ignore.

Effective this month, patients seeking cosmetic surgery in California will have to undergo a physical exam thanks to a new law named for Kanye West's late-mother, who died a day after receiving cosmetic procedures, according to news reports.

The Donda West Law also requires written clearance from a doctor within 30 days before a patient receives elective cosmetic surgery, according to a CNN news report. West, 58, who received cosmetic procedures on her breasts and abdomen in Los Angeles, Calif., died on Nov. 10, 2007. The Los Angeles County autopsy report attributed her death to "coronary artery disease and multiple post-operative factors,'' not to surgical error, which was widely believed at the time.

Heeey!

Just Out!!! Gardasil, the vaccine that protects girls and women from genital warts and cervical cancer has been approved for boys and men. Genital warts, cervical cancer, and some cancers of the penis, scrotum, anus, and throat are caused by certain types of human papilloma virus (HPV). While the vaccine may not protect boys and men against all HPV types that can cause these cancers, it does protect them against the two HPV types (types 6 and 11) that cause 90 percent of genital warts in the U.S.

A good romp around the playground before lunch could make all the difference in the health and behavior of schoolchildren, according to some education experts.

Schools that schedule recess before lunch report that students consume more fruits and vegetables and exhibit fewer behavioral problems, according to an article in The New York Times.

Kids are calmer after recess, a New Jersey principal told The Times. The principal went on to say that students feel less rushed and have more time to eat.

North Ranch Elementary in Scottsdale, Ariz. adopted the idea about nine years ago after a nurse suggested the change, the article says. By the end of the first year, visits to the nurse's office dropped by 40 percent.

The information comes at a time when officials, including First Lady Michelle Obama, are grappling with ways to battle childhood obesity. Nearly one-third of children in America are overweight or obese, and almost half of all African American and Latino children will eventually suffer from diabetes, Mrs. Obama said.

Before you reach for that bottle of Tylenol, Motrin or St. Joseph's aspirin, be sure to check the lot number.

Johnson & Johnson, the maker of the medications, recently issued a massive recall of the products because of a moldy odor that has caused people to become ill, according to some news reports.

It was the second recall in less than a month, a problem that was first reported to Johnson & Johnson's McNeil Consumer Healthcare Products in 2008. Now, the company is under scrutiny again from officials with the Food and Drug Administration who say the company failed to respond promptly to complaints, and was not thorough enough in its handling of the problem from the beginning.

For years, binge eating, defined as "eating large amounts of food while feeling a loss of control over eating," lurked in the shadows of anorexia and bulimia as a sign of depression. It usually subsided with treatment of psychotropic medications.

But soon, it emerged from the shadows and became a category of its own, prompting the American Psychiatric Association to put the condition on its watch list in 1994, according to an article in The Morning Call.

As a result, an estimated one half of eating-disorder patients are now classified as binge eaters who do not purge, though they sometimes cross the line between bulimia and anorexia, the article says. About 78.9 percent struggle with depression, anxiety or substance addiction.

First Lady Michelle Obama entered the political scrum a day after the Democrats were stripped of their 60-seat Senate supermajority, introducing an ambitious plan to help combat childhood obesity.

While Mrs. Obama's wide-ranging speech at the U.S. Conference of Mayors received muted media coverage because the spotlight was the stunning victory of Senator-elect Scott Brown in Massachusetts, it was no less remarkable.

Richard M. Daley, mayor of Mrs. Obama's hometown of Chicago and Joseph Riley, mayor of Charleston, S. C., attended the event along with 224 other mayors. The popular first lady, who returned to the political fray to push her husband's foundering health care bill, called childhood obesity an epidemic in America, saying it is one of the greatest threats to the American economy.

Indeed, nearly one-third of children in America are overweight or obese -- one in three, she emphasized. And a third of all children today will eventually suffer from diabetes -- in the African American and Latino communities, it skyrockets to almost half.

"If we continue on our current path,'' Obama said, "in 10 years, nearly 50 percent of all Americans will be obese -- not just overweight, but obese.''