Subject: US Mayor's call on Clinton to lift needle x ban!
From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 12:51:13 -0400 (EDT)

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
ACT UP Washington DC
409 H Street NE
Washington, DC 20002
====================
For immediate release   June 24, 1997
==================================
contact Wayne Turner or Steve Michael
202.547.0854 or 547.9404

US Conference of Mayors hits Clinton Administration's failure to support
needle exchange

Washington, DC  The US Conference of Mayors passed a resolution today calling
upon the Clinton Administration to lift the federal funding ban for needle
exchange programs.  ACT UP Washington, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power,
which has harshly criticized Clinton on needle exchange, welcomed the action
by the Mayors Conference.  

 States spokesperson Steve Michael, "Bill Clinton has had the power to save
lives with the stroke of a pen.  Yet thousands have become needlessly
infected with HIV.  That will become President Clinton's legacy."

 ACT UP Washington has long worked to focus national attention on the federal
funding ban for needle exchange programs.  During the 1996 New Hampshire
Democratic primary, ACT UP Washington aired a television commercial on
Manchester's ABC affiliate WMUR demonstration how to clean a syringe with
bleach to avoid HIV infection, in the absence of clean needle availability.
 During the Democratic Convention in Chicago, ACT UP and members of the
Chicago Recovery Alliance protested the federal funding ban.  ACT UP
Washington member Wayne Turner met with Vice President Al Gore following a
disruption, and urged him to save lives by lifting the funding ban for needle
exchange programs.

 Officials with the Clinton Administration have at times contended that they
did not have the power to lift the needle exchange ban.  Former AIDS adviser
Patsy Fleming stated in 1996, "Those advocating that Federal funds be spent
should turn their attention to Congress."  Congress explicitly granted the
executive branch of government the power to lift the funding ban in the
annual appropriations for Labor and Human Services.

 "How many men, women, and children are now infected with HIV because of this
Administration?  What a waste of lives." adds Wayne Turner.