Subject: Project Infirm
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 03:38:49 -0400

The following essay is long.
But so is Project Inform's history of abusing people with AIDS.

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Poor Martin Delaney.

Judging from his recent rambling attack on the HIV-infected dissenters of ACT
UP San Francisco he obviously feels that his Orwellian world of dogmatic
double-speak has been besieged.

In his irrational world, a logical approach to treating AIDS as an immune
deficiency syndrome has been muted by power, control and priorities other
than a sincere desire to explore all the possibilities of ending this global
holocaust.

In his world of greed, Delaney as the HIV-negative Big Brother of AIDS
treatments has transformed Project Inform, once a community-based advocacy
group, into a pill-pushing promotional powerhouse for drug companies.

In his deceitful world, debate and dissent are framed as fascism; conflict of
interest becomes "corporate support of the AIDS community"; and a fatally
flawed "access-to-toxins" AIDS treatment paradigm, created and
institutionalized by Delaney and his cronies in the drug biz, is marketed as
"hope."

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH 
----------------------------------------
Project Inform demands total obedience to a scientifically unsound AIDS
treatment paradigm that maximizes pharmaceutical industry profits but
minimizes survival time for people with AIDS.

For the past decade, Project Inform has forsaken the basic principles of
immunology in its relentless effort to assist the pharmaceutical industry in
bringing expensive, unproven toxic agents to market.

P.I. refuses to educate the AIDS community about the fundamental components
of the immune system such as the rudimentary distinction between humoral and
cellular immunity. People with AIDS are deliberately kept in the dark about
the importance of a strong cellular immune response to control virtually all
opportunistic infections that threaten their lives. In addition, Project
Inform refuses to come clean and warn the HIV-infected (especially
asymptomatics) that the drugs they urge them to consume impair critical
immune system cell functions. This impairment leads to immune suppression and
thereby speeds progression to AIDS or death. (1,2,3)

For example, nowhere in P.I.'s "Antivirals A to Z" fact sheet does it mention
that these agents are not HIV-specific and, in fact, that they depress
protective cellular responses.

This is despite early cries of caution from scientists like UCSF's Jay Levy
who warned back in 1990 that "AZT can only hasten the demise of the
individual. It's an immune disease and AZT only further harms an already
decimated immune system."(4) Other reverse transcriptase inhibitors follow
AZT's mode of action with similarly anticipated results.

Delaney, however, shows his profound ignorance by trivializing and
denigrating the cutting-edge research of renowned scientists like Levy.

The work of immunologists like Shearer, Clerici, Romagani and Pantaleo
reveals that the key to halting AIDS progression is by strengthening the
human immune response in an effort to prevent the irreversible damage that
HIV causes to cellular immunity. Their research provides the scientific
foundation for ACT UP San Francisco's valid criticisms of Project Inform's
"kill the virus with toxins" hype. (5,6)

It's almost comical that Delaney, HIV-negative dictator of an organization
that deliberately clings to an unscientific approach to treating immune
deficiency, would accuse the HIV-infected activists from ACT UP SF of "not
doing their homework."

These PWAs have empowered themselves to seek out life-saving information by
keeping abreast of the latest developments in the field of immunology.

The same activists that Delaney derides were invited by the National
Institutes of Health in 1994 to present an educational forum to government
AIDS researchers on the role of cellular immunity in HIV infection.

Such an accomplishment by self-educated street activists stands in stark
contrast to the numerous failures of bastardized immunology funded and
promoted by Project Inform's Immune Restoration Think Tank (IRTT). Their
highly sensationalized xenographic transplant of baboon bone marrow stem
cells into an AIDS patient was nothing but a far-fetched, pricey sci-fi flop.
Ditto for thymic transplantation. Gene therapy (CD4 cell expansion, etc.), so
frequently billed as "promising" by P.I. has recently come under fire from an
NIH investigative panel as being "oversold" by their sponsors who have
neglected basic science. (7)

No small wonder then that Project Inform channels virtually all of its time,
energy and financial resources into helping conservative Republicans strip
the FDA of its regulatory oversight of drug development and approval; into
institutionalizing unreliable surrogate markers like peripheral blood viral
load tests to "prove" alleged drug efficacy; and finally into demanding and
marketing expensive, worthless anti-HIV drugs by screaming about access.
Access to toxic, immune-suppressive treatments is nothing short of murder.

The results of all these years of hard "work" by Project Inform are reflected
in AIDS survival statistics of San Francisco's HIV-infected men.

Before the widespread promotion of early intervention with antivirals by
bought-off pharmco pawns like P.I., survival time among HIV-infected men in
San Francisco increased from 28.4 months in 10/83 to 40.1 months in 11/88.
Time to death from an AIDS diagnosis during this same time period also
increased from 14.7 months to 19.1 months.

However, from 11/88 to 2/93, when Project Inform was at its height of
accepting drug company payoffs to push immune suppressive AZT and other
toxins through their "Town Hall" forums, median survival time dropped from
40.1 months to 38.1 months. Similarly, time to death from an AIDS diagnosis
also fell from 19.1 months to 15.7 months.

In the end, this study of 761 participants concluded that from 1983 to 1993
overall survival time of HIV-infected men in San Francisco increased by only
1 year. The study concluded that this marginal improvement was solely
attributable to the increased use of PCP prophylaxis to prevent pneumocystis
pneumonia. The one year increase was not associated with antiviral use. (8)

Billions of dollars were wasted in creating and pushing immune-suppressive
compounds that failed to extend (and in many cases shortened) the lives of
innumerable panicked PWAs. So much for Project Inform's "decade of hope."

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY 
-----------------------------------
Drug company financing has prostituted the mission of Project Inform and has
compromised the truth of their treatment information.

Once upon a time, Project Inform was a community-based resource and advocacy
group for an HIV-infected community in crisis. Now the organization clearly
serves the function of bridging the gap between drug companies eager to sell
expensive products and frightened people with AIDS desperate for help. Today
Project Inform is little more than a shell of its former self; nothing more
than a weapon that the powerful pharmaceutical industry uses to whip up a
feeding frenzy for drugs.

Scarier still is that in addition to accepting drug money to market the
industry's products, Project Inform, through their information hotline, lures
unsuspecting HIVers (some who just recently discovered their positive
serostatus) into sacrificing their bodies to drug company sponsored medical
experiments that test potential new toxins on humans. And they accuse ACT UP
SF of being Nazis?

So exactly how much money does Project Inform get paid by the pharmaceutical
industry?

When asked that question by a PWA at a 1994 P.I. forum in New York, Delaney
snapped "over a dollar and less than a million. How's that?" before telling
the PWA to "go fuck himself."(9)

In his recent diatribe, Delaney attempts to diffuse the suspicion inherent in
accepting industry dollars with the excuse that "the pharmaceutical industry
which profits from this epidemic has the first and foremost corporate
obligation to give money back in the form of community funding."

Certainly sounds noble. But what Delaney fails to mention is that according
to Project Inform's 1994 tax returns more than $90,000 of "corporate
community funding" from Hoffman-LaRoche and Burroughs-Wellcome went straight
into P.I. coffers to pay for 20 so-called "Town Hall" meetings as well as a
volunteer hotline coordinator.

Who in the hell is Delaney trying to fool? There are numerous ways that drug
companies could put money back into our community without unabashedly
promoting their own profit-making interests. Financing food and shelter for
homeless PWAs is one such solution.

Despite Delaney's attempt to downplay the serious breach of trust engendered
in conflict of interest with his juvenile "everybody's doing it too" excuse,
one can easily see the impact that drug company dollars have had on Project
Inform.

1) Project Inform puts all its eggs in the antiviral basket.

In its information materials, Project Inform claims that they promote a
holistic 5-part strategy of intervention against HIV-infection. An
accompanying pie chart shows the following areas in equal proportions:
general health maintenance, supportive therapies, antiviral therapies,
opportunistic infection strategies and immune system strategies. They then go
on to advise that "the biggest mistake we can make is to dogmatically choose
one approach over the others."

However an examination of the content of their last P.I. Perspective
treatment publication and of their last "Town Hall" meeting in San Francisco
tells a drastically different story about where their priorities lie.

The December 1995 issue of P.I. Perspective, mailed to thousands of PWAs and
AIDS advocates across the nation, contained 11 articles that could be placed
in one of the five areas of P.I.'s intervention strategy. Of those eleven
articles, seven promoted the antiviral component, three discussed
opportunistic drugs and one article purported to investigate immune-based
strategies. There was no mention of general health maintenance or any
supportive (alternative) therapies.

Project Inform "Town Hall" meetings are similarly skewed towards marketing
regimens of immune-suppressive, expensive compounds. A handout distributed by
P.I. volunteers at the last "Town Hall" meeting in San Francisco documents
the 32 overhead slides shown to PWAs in the course of the two-hour long drug
promo. Of those 32 total slides, 27 were able to be placed in one of the
intervention areas. Of those 27 slides, 23 focused on antivirals, three
discussed failed immune reconstitution protocols (baboon bone marrow
transplant), and one mentioned drugs for opportunistic infections. Worse yet,
Delaney had no intention of even discussing opportunistic infections at this
forum but was forced to do so by angry PWAs.

2) Project Inform changes its mission statement.

In 1993 Project Inform revised their Organizational Overview Fact Sheet. The
1992 version of this document, which explained P.I.'s structure and mission,
identified four key aspects of their work. However, the 1993 version
conspicuously omitted the fourth aspect which encouraged the organization to
"facilitate and accelerate research in those aspects of AIDS which seem both
critically important and necessary, but which are inadequately addressed by
existing federal actions and commercials interests."

Not surprising that with the influx of cash from the commercial sector,
Project Inform would chuck this holdover from its community-based days in
order to free up more time to push AZT. This glaring revision to their
Organizational Overview must be viewed as our leaders handing the entire AIDS
treatment arena over to their new found employer: the pharmaceutical
industry. By doing so, Project Inform damned any future investigative
initiatives into compounds with little profit making potential (like DNCB)
and thereby cemented into place their adherence to the deadly
"access-to-toxins" treatment paradigm.

(continued in next message...)

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 03:47:33 -0400
Subject: Project Infirm (2 of 2)

(continued from last message)

3) Project Inform gives PWAs inaccurate, biased treatment advice.

The treatment information that Project Inform dispenses to PWAs is woefully
inaccurate and seriously biased in order to preserve the flawed AIDS
treatment paradigm upon which they profit.

So-called "Fact Sheets" for AZT, ddI and ddC read like they were written by
Glaxo, Bristol-Meyers and Roche representatives. The alleged benefits of
these compounds on unreliable surrogate markers are drastically overstated as
representing actual clinical benefit. Side effects are downplayed, explained
away or blamed on the patient. These supposedly objective treatment resources
are poorly referenced and never acknowledge the existence of cellular
immunity let alone warn the patient of the immune suppressive nature of these
potent agents. Despite this lack of concrete benefit, the drugs are promoted
with a positive, optimistic tone.

Compare these drug company promo pieces to the hatchet jobs that serve as
"Fact Sheets" for the Concorde Study and the immune modulator DNCB; two
topics that directly challenge the toxic paradigm under which Project Inform
operates and makes money.

The Concorde Study's results directly contradicted P.I.'s long-standing
advice of taking AZT as soon as possible. It also pulled the rug out from
under the pharmaceutical industry by questioning the use of CD4 counts as a
surrogate endpoint for the efficacy testing of antiviral drugs. (10) Needless
to say, Project Inform's "Fact Sheet" does not treat the study kindly.
Concorde's results are dissected, assailed, and twisted into a kind of
perverted support for combination therapy of several antivirals. It's worth
noting that the Concorde Study is the only clinical trial to which P.I.
devotes a "Fact Sheet." (Expect one for ACTG 019 soon.)

The most frightening example of Project Inform's dishonesty in reporting on
AIDS treatments that interfere with their paradigm of profit is embodied in
the now infamous DNCB "Fact Sheet."

Quite simply, P.I.'s supposedly objective analysis of this cellular
immune-boosting contact allergen amounts to nothing but an inaccurate,
unreferenced exercise in fear and intimidation. Through this Lie Sheet,
Project Inform actively discourages people from using this inexpensive,
unpatentable, proven immune modulator. It is unbelievable that until now
Project Inform has been able to get away with deceiving the AIDS community
with such trash.

The DNCB Lie Sheet is a veritable horror story of toxicity, unknown modes of
action, unsubstantiated anecdotal claims of burns and amputations and petty
accusations irrelevant to the treatment.

However a quick reference of DNCB's listing in the National Library of
Medicine's database (DRG-0080) provides the inquisitive with 10 references on
the substance as well as the following summary:

MODE OF ACTION: Dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB) is a contact sensitizing agent
that enhances the function of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) via induction
of delayed-type hypersensitivity. Topical application of DNCB was previously
shown to be safe in a small number of patients with early HIV disease. One
study has followed the clinical course and examined alterations of lymphocyte
subsets in the same group of patients over a longer period of time. The
researchers concluded that prolonged use of topical DNCB is associated with
stable clinical course in most patients, despite a significant decrease in
CD4 T-cells. Lack of disease progression is associated with a stable CD8 CD38
count, and may be related to a persistent increase in natural killer cells.
This increase is probably due to DNCB-induced delayed-type hypersensitivity
that may be beneficial in HIV disease. DNCB also appears to be effective in
the treatment of cutaneous Kaposi's angiosarcoma. (11)

The DNCB Lie Sheet is a perfect example of how Project Inform, so embroiled
in conflict of interest, has betrayed the AIDS community and why it can't be
trusted with advocating for our lives.

WAR IS PEACE 
-----------------------
Project Inform displays an overt contempt for people with AIDS and spearheads
an effort to silence the overdue emergence of an immune-focused treatment
paradigm.

Martin Delaney has a reputation as an HIV-negative despot. His vicious
attacks on PWAs, HIV-infected communities and AIDS advocates with whom he
disagrees are frightening and well-documented. (12,13,14)

James Scutero, Charles Caufield, Celia Farber, Peter Duesberg, Elinor
Burkett, Lisa Krieger, Blaine Elswood and now ACT UP San Francisco have all
been targets of his egomaniacal venom.

Be very clear that this HIV-negative ex-marketing rep turned AIDS careerist
in no way speaks for nor represents the concerns of those of us who are
HIV-infected.

It is ironic that Delaney would try to frame ACT UP San Francisco's dissent
as censorship when he himself is the king of behind-the-scenes lies and
intimidation tactics to squelch information that opposes the profitable
treatment paradigm that props up his organization. Just ask sci.med.aids
public newsgroup moderator Mark Buzza who was recently threatened with legal
action by Delaney for approving the Internet postings of ACT UP SF. Delaney's
untrue accusations about ACT UP SF as well as verification of his
behind-the-scenes intimidation tactics using the Project Inform name are
documented in the following correspondence between Mr. Buzza and Delaney:

Subj:  Re: ACTUP SF
Date:  Fri, Mar 22, 1996 11:06 PM EDT
From: [email-masked]
To:     [email-masked] (Martin Delaney)
CC:     [email-masked] (San Francisco ACTUP)
          [email-masked] (discussion-list)
          [email-masked] (sma)

Martin,

ACT UP SF is asking me for a copy of the letter you sent stating that they
had about three members, had injunctions placed against their members because
of death threats etc... They (as you did) have threatened legal action which
I have no desire to be involved in. If you have a copy of those letters, I
would appreciate your sending them, or a statement containing them, to me and
ACT UP SF, assuming your allegations were factual. Additionally, a copy of
your letter indicating your board was prepared to act against me as well for
posting ACT UP SF's alleged slander would be helpful.

Regards,
Mark Buzza

In addition to censoring information, both Delaney and Project Inform have
demonstrated an incredible contempt for the HIV-infected community.

In 1994, Project Inform came out strongly against the AIDS Cure Act,
grassroots legislation still pending in Congress that would prohibit conflict
of interest in AIDS research and fund an all-out effort to find a cure for
this disease.

More recently, with the approval of Ritonavir and Indinavir, two potent
protease inhibitors, Delaney and Project Inform reveal a most vile strategy
to avoid eating crow for any future revelations that the drugs don't work:
blame the patient. This message was clearly communicated to the AIDS
community in a 3/20/96 ACT UP Golden Gate column penned by Delaney that
appeared in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter. (15)

"In short, people may only have one chance with the protease drugs so they
better get it right." Delaney threatened.

He then listed several reasons why the drugs might fail; all of which
surrounded dosing and ultimately laid the blame on the obviously inept PWA.
This despite the fact that antiviral kingpin Donald Abrams has admitted that
he feels these drugs were not sufficiently studied to be approved. (16)
Despite studies of this class of compounds which revealed that they don't
work in nearly one-third of HIV-infected patients who have never taken any
anti-HIV drugs. (17) Despite the severe toxic side effects, stringent
compliance requirements and litany of dangerous drug interactions that may
prevent these agents from having the desired outcome on ridiculous surrogate
markers like viral load. Given these realities about the proteases, Delaney's
threatening article can only be seen as harrassment of the sick.

Presently in San Francisco, Project Inform is spearheading a smear campaign
and media blitz framing the non-violent HIV-infected members of ACT UP SF as
"violent thugs", "Nazis" and "fascists." By doing so they hope to cover up
the reality that it was ACT UP SF members who were violently attacked by a
Project Inform volunteer at a drug company forum sponsored by San Francisco's
Community Consortium. As petty as P.I.'s tactics and accusations may be,
their coordinated public condemnation of the HIV-infected dissidents of ACT
UP SF belies a much more sinister agenda: an all out war against the
emergence of an immune-focused treatment paradigm.

This paradigm realizes that, as Anthony Fauci stated in a 1985 Annual Review
of Immunology article, "the immune system of patients with AIDS are
characterized by a profound defect in cell-mediated immunity which is
predominantly due to a decrease in the number and function of the
helper/inducer T lymphocytes particularly the antigen-reactive cells. This
defect is manifested primarily as decreases in delayed-type hypersensitivity
reactions and decreased in vitro proliferation to soluble antigen." (18) It
is the impairment of this protective branch of the immune system which
results in breakouts of opportunistic infections. By viewing AIDS in such a
manner it makes sense to use treatments that boost cellular immune functions
and avoid treatments that further suppress this protective branch of the
immune system.

Big Brother Delaney knows that the emergence of this new paradigm spells the
end of drugs-into-bodies and the "access-to-toxins" treatment approach by
which Project Inform and Martin Delaney have both financially benefitted. It
is obvious that he and his cronies in the AIDS industry will go to any
lengths to prevent that from happening.

San Francisco AIDS activists have had enough of malevolent power mongers like
Delaney. They refuse to be silent when faced with the pervasiveness of
conflict of interest and will not permit the stifling of immune-based AIDS
treatment efforts by the likes of Project Inform, San Francisco AIDS
Foundation and ACT UP Golden Gate. It's time for the HIV-positive volunteers
at P.I. to overthrow their misguided, tyrannical leader and lead the
organization back to its community-based roots.

The paradigm shift has begun.

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER!

References:

1) Tindall B; Carr A; Goldstein D; Penny R; Cooper DA. Administration of
zidovudine during primary HIV-1 infection may be associated with a less
vigorous immune response (letter). AIDS, Jan. 1993, 7(1):127-8.
2) Shaw DR; Knight DR; Waterman AL; Sommadossi JP. 3'-Azido-3'-deoxythymidine
inhibition of human lymphocyte cytolytic function in vitro. Biochemical
Pharmacology, Jan. 15, 1991, 41(2):287-91.
3) Heagy W; Crumpacker C; Lopez PA; Finberg RW. Inhibition of immune
functions by antiviral drugs. Journal of Clinical Investigation, Jun. 1991,
87(6):1916-24.
4) Garrett L. "AIDS: the next decade," New York Newsday, Jun. 12, 1990, I,5.
5) Shearer G; Clerici M. Protective immunity against HIV infection: has
nature done the experiment for us? Immunology Today, January 1996.
6) Pantaleo G et al. Studies in subjects with long-term nonprogressive human
immunodeficiency virus infection. NEJM, Vol. 332 No. 4, Jan. 26, 1995.
7) Marshall E. "Less hype, more biology needed for gene therapy," Science,
Dec. 15 1995.
8) Osmond D; charlebois E; Lang w; Shiboski S; Moss A. Changes in AIDS median
survival time in two San Francisco cohorts of homosexual men, 1983 to 1993.
JAMA, April 13, 1993, 271(14):1083-1087.
9) Scutero J. "Re: Elinor Burkett on dissention," misc.health.aids posting,
March 23, 1996, 10:35:39 AM.
10) Seligmann M et al. Concorde study. The Lancet, Vol. 343, April 9,1994.
11) DNCB Listing (DRG-0080). National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD,
April 5, 1994.
12) Caulfield C; Goldberg B. "Censorship by intimidation: point/counterpoint
with Martin Delaney," Anarchist AIDS Medical Formulary, 1993, Berkeley, North
Atlantic Books, pp. 26-30.
13) Burkett E. "Pill pushers and policy makers," The Gravest Show on Earth,
1995, pp. 264-270.
14) Farber C. "AIDS: words from the front," SPIN Magazine, September 1995,
Vol 11 Number 6, pp. 103-104.
15) Delaney M. "A new generation of therapy," Bay Area Reporter, March 21,
1996, p. 30.
16) Kingston T. "Acting out at AIDS drug forum," Frontiers, March 28, 1996,
p. 8.
17) Lech et al. Presence of protease inhibitor- resistant variants in
untreated subjects. J. Virol., 2038-2043, Mar. 1996.
18) Lane HC, Fauci AS. Immunologic abnormalities in the acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome. Annual Review of Immunology 1985; 3:477-500.