Subject: Bloodbath in Vancouver! Ban AZT!
From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 15:09:49 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: July 11, 1996

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Michael Bellefoutaine in Vancouver: (604) 240-4967
Todd Swindell in Vancouver: (604) 240-4152
ACT UP SF Vancouver Hotline: (604) 980-4547 ext. 324
ACT UP SF San Francisco Hotline: (415) 522-2907

Bloodbath in Vancouver! Activists Asked To Leave Canada After Crashing AIDS
Conference Combo Therapy Promo
----------
ACT UP SF members drench panel members Paul Volberding and Margaret Fischl
with fake blood to protest promotion of combination antiviral therapies that
destroy the immune system

Vancouver, B.C. - Yesterday, nearly ten years after the approval of the first
AIDS treatment, AZT, members of the controversial militant AIDS activist
group ACT UP San Francisco crashed a panel discussion about the drug's use in
combination with other antiviral agents held during the 11th International
Conference on AIDS. AIDS activists renounced the "drugs into bodies"credo and
demanded that Glaxo-Wellcome, AZT's manufacturer, immediately cease
production of the compound and that AIDS researchers shift the focus of
anti-HIV treatment from "killing the virus" to strengthening the immune
system.

Chanting "Margaret Fischl: You're A Fraud! You Gave AZT The Nod!" and
"Volberding: Your Lies Kill! AZT's A Toxic Pill!" twenty irate activists from
ACT UP SF stormed into the pharmaceutical industry panel discussion
"Guidelines for Antiretroviral Therapy: Bringing The State-Of-The-Art To
Clinical Practice." The presentation announced recommendations for the
administration of combination antiviral therapy as outlined in the July 10th
JAMA article "Antiretroviral Therapy For HIV Infection in 1996:
Recommendations of an International Panel."

Over 2,000 stunned conference attendees, packed into two grand ballrooms,
looked on in silence as ACT UP members threw red dollar bills labeled "Glaxo
Blood Money", unfurled a banner and soaked dazed and speechless panelists
with liters of fake blood. AIDS activists charged panel members Margaret
Fischl and Paul Volberding with murder for instituting and maintaining a
scientifically flawed, yet highly profitable, AIDS treatment approach that
urges people with HIV infection to combat the disease with potent regimens of
immune suppressive agents.

Kicking over chairs, throwing microphones, smashing glasses and overturning
conference tables, protesters demanded an immediate end to the practice of
treating AIDS patients with dangerous chemotherapeutic agents. The activists
asserted that the therapies hyped during the week-long conference such as
AZT, ddI, ddC and protease inhibitors impair the immune system's natural
ability to fight HIV and control the opportunistic infections that kill
people with AIDS. The symposium was delayed over an hour as panel members
frantically attempted to clean up their mess.

Two ACT UP SF demonstrators, David Pasquarelli and Medea Lopez, were arrested
and jailed for assault and criminal mischief. The charges were later dropped
and Canadian immigration officials demanded that the AIDS activists leave the
country by Friday, July 12 at 12:00 a.m.

ACT UP presented evidence that both Fischl and Volberding have accepted
pharmaceutical industry pay-offs to conduct experiments testing AZT and other
antivirals in humans. In fact, it was on the basis of information from
Fischl's 1987 drug trial that AZT was approved; a trial that was years later
exposed as unreliable and poorly conducted and whose data was branded as
fraudulent by prominent AIDS researchers and statisticians.

The demonstrators harshly criticized both the panel discussion and journal
article announced at the presentation as nothing more than an advertisement
campaign masquerading as science. The discussion was underwritten by an
alliance of drug companies including Glaxo-Wellcome, Bristol-Meyers Squibb,
Hoffmann-La Roche, Roxanne Laboratories, Chiron Corporation, Agouron, Merck,
and Abbott Laboratories.

"This entire AIDS conference was bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical
industry as a way to hype their deadly drugs," commented AIDS dissident Todd
Swindell. "These companies concoct expensive products; fund and execute tests
of them on humans to generate fraudulent data supporting their supposed
efficacy; and buy off mainstream AIDS organizations and conferences to then
push these unproven compounds down the throats of people with AIDS. The
entire AIDS treatment approach is murderously misdirected and must change
now!"

ACT UP San Francisco demanded that:

1)  Glaxo-Wellcome immediately stop the production of AZT since the agent was
approved on the basis of a faulty clinical trial that yielded fraudulent
data.

2)  The U.S. Government halt all clinical trials that utilize AZT as part of
the treatment protocol

3)  The U.S. Government initiate a class action lawsuit against Glaxo to
compensate the families of those persons with AIDS whose lives were destroyed
by the drug.

4)  AIDS researchers sever all financial ties with pharmaceutical companies;
including stock options, grants, consultation fees, honoria and reimbursement
fees for travel expenses.

5)  AIDS researchers replace the current "kill the virus with toxic drugs"
treatment paradigm with an immune-based therapeutic strategy that focuses on
improving overall health and strengthening the cellular immune response that
is deficient in AIDS.

ACT UP members stated that their demonstration in Vancouver was only the
beginning. They vowed to escalate their direct action tactics to end conflict
of interest in AIDS research and confront the promotion of dangerous
chemotherapeutic agents as a method of treating an immune deficiency
syndrome.

###

Press Photos and video footage of the "Vancouver Bloodbath" are available
upon request. For more information on this or other ACT UP SF actions contact
us at (415) 522-2907. Our mailing address is 1388 Haight Street, #218, San
Francisco, CA 94117. Fax: (415) 834-0243; Email: [email-masked].