Subject: Re: Reuters: Steve Michael on surgeon general nominee
From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 10:52:32 -0400 (EDT)

The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
ACT UP Washington
202.547.9404
September 12, 1997

Clinton picks weakling for bully pulpit position 
Nation's top doc nominee an "AIDS failure" activists say

Washington, DC -- Surgeon General nominee Dr. David Satcher is unsuitable to
fill the bully pulpit post vacated after the firing of 'Condom Queen' AIDS
champion Dr. Joycelyn Elders, charges the AIDS activist group ACT UP in
Washington, DC.  Under Satcher's lackluster leadership at the US Centers of
Disease Control and Prevention since 1993, HIV infections have skyrocketed
among a new generation of Gay and bisexual men, injection drug users, their
partners, and African-American women.  
 "Instead of targeting high risk populations with a hard hitting message, Dr.
Satcher has wasted millions of dollars for HIV prevention and education on
watered-down media campaigns that say nothing.   He's been more concerned
about funding the bureaucracy than saving lives." states Steve Michael, HIV+
spokesperson for ACT UP Washington.  Activists note that most new HIV
infections result from needle sharing, and sexual intercourse without latex
condoms and water-based lubricants.  Yet even this most basic information
fails to appear in CDC funded HIV prevention campaigns.
 The Surgeon General post has remain vacant since 1994, when President
Clinton fired his long-time friend Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who suggested at a
World AIDS Day event in 1994 that the discussion masturbation might be
incorporated into age-appropriate safe sex messages.  
 Surgeons General like Elders and C Everett Koop earned the respect and
admiration of AIDS activists by standing up to politicians.  "Who do you want
leading the war on AIDS, Churchill, or Chamberlain?" adds Michael.  ACT UP
Washington campaigned against the nomination of Dr. Henry Foster after Foster
announced on ABC's Nightline that he opposed condom distribution as a
component of HIV prevention. 
 States ACT UP member Wayne Turner, who was arrested after disrupting
Foster's Senate confirmation hearing, "Take a good look at Satcher's AIDS
record.  AIDS patients got turned away from Meharry Medical Center while
Satcher was its President, and Foster was its director.  We have the
newspaper accounts that prove it."  
  In the past four years, free condoms and water-based lubricants have
disappeared from Gay bars, shelters, prisons, and schools.  "Under Dr.
Satcher, CDC AIDS funding has gone to pay for high salaries, travel expenses,
and conferences in resort cities for a bunch of bureaucrats riding the gravy
train.  Just think how many lives could be saved if money went to condoms and
lube, bleach kits and clean needles," adds Turner.

Note:  Watch for the Washington Times editorial supporting Satcher for the
same reasons ACT UP Washington opposes him.