Subject: Activist leak "embargoed" "National AIDS Strategy"
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 18:21:41 -0500

ACT UP Washington leaks "embargoed" copy of White House AIDS strategy
Clinton AIDS Plan a Dud
Prez to release document Tuesday
Long awaited and promised Strategy Report Signals retreat on "War on AIDS"
 * Items ignored include
       * Needle Exchange
       * Anal Microbicides for Gay men
       * Manhattan Project for Cure
             ****and much more

Touts "War on Drugs" discusses Office of Drug Policy in favorable light
Copies of the report can be obtained from ACT UP Washington via Federal
Express (e mail for more details)
Washington, DC-- Members of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP in Washington DC,
"liberated" a copy of the White House National AIDS Strategy.  The document,
two years in the making, is embargoed until Tuesday, when it will be released
by President Clinton.  
 
The National AIDS Strategy, touted by Administration officials as their
blueprint for a federal response to epidemic, is merely a rehash and retreat
of five year old recommendations by the now defunct National Commission on
AIDS.  AIDS activists expressed concern that the national plan is weak,
destined to gather dust on a shelf along with previous reports and
recommendations.  

 States ACT UP spokesperson Steve Michael, "A real national AIDS plan needs
three things:  the lifting of the federal funding ban on needle exchange
programs, an all out coordinated research effort like the Manhattan-project
to finds an AIDS cure, and the appointment of a real, cabinet-level AIDS Czar
to direct the federal response to the AIDS epidemic.  These basics are
noticeably absent from this 'plan'."
 
The plan was discussed this weekend by members of the President's HIV/AIDS
Advisory Council, who earlier this year criticized the President for failing
to show "moral courage and leadership" on AIDS, and blasted the
Administration for failing to support needle exchange programs..  Though
Clinton promised to make AIDS a top priority of his Administration, his has
failed to keep key campaign promises dating back to 1992, such as the
Manhattan-project on AIDS.
 
Last week in a major speech outlining his domestic agenda for the next four
years, Clinton failed to mention AIDS, which has become America's 8th leading
killer, and the number one cause of death among Americans ages 25-44.  A just
released voter survey by the conservative Democratic Leadership Council shows
an 80% approval for billions in additional resources for AIDS research.
 
AIDS activists note that, while the White House touts funding increases for
AIDS, those increases are based largely on entitlement spending for poor
people with AIDS who are increasingly dependent on programs like Medicaid and
Social Security, for which they automatically qualify.
 
Wayne Turner from ACT UP Washington adds, "This report signals a definite
retreat on AIDS, with no bold new initiatives like needle exchange, an AIDS
Czar with real power, or the Manhattan-project to find a cure.  You can't
fight the war on AIDS with paper soldiers."

NOTE:  WE WILL TRY TO POST MORE DETAILS LATER TONITE (TIME, T-CELLS AND
ENERGY PERMITTING)