Subject: Senate AIDS complacency hearing erupts
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 01:47:09 EST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: February 14, 2000

CONTACT:
David Pasquarelli: (415) 637-4666
Michael Petrelis of the AIDS Accountability Project: (415) 621-6267

Activists Upset Secret Senate Hearing on "AIDS Complacency"
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Widespread industry corruption charged as AIDS numbers drop

San Francisco -- A dozen angry activists were ejected from a Senate 
Appropriations Committee hearing convened today to discuss AIDS complacency 
and increased funding for HIV research and prevention. The protestors charge 
that government officials staged the secret hearing and invited only AIDS 
bureaucrats that promote alarmist rhetoric to garner more federal funding. 
The hearing was not publicized through any community newspaper or 
AIDS-related website. U.S. Senators Arlen Specter and Barbara Boxer, 
Representative Nancy Pelosi and California Assemblywoman Carole Migden joined 
UCSF AIDS researcher Thomas Coates in calling for expanded AIDS funding.

Activists entered the hearing, positioning themselves throughout the small 
audience of 30 AIDS industry insiders. As Specter began the proceedings they 
leapt to their feet and began chanting "AIDS disappears as CDC funds fear!" 
and "Corruption not complacency is the real AIDS news!" Several ACT UP 
members stormed the stage and held signs reading "Stop Funding AIDS Terror" 
while other activists plastered the walls with stickers reading "AIDS is 
Over."

"It's a disgrace. The Senate holds a secret hearing excluding people who 
aren't on the AIDS gravy train. If this is indicative of how Congress plans 
to conduct Ryan White hearings this spring the American public is in 
trouble," warned ACT UP member David Pasquarelli. "Instead of private 
hearings on AIDS complacency, Congress should conduct a public investigation 
of AIDS fraud."

ACT UP members charge that despite dramatic across-the-board drops in new 
U.S. AIDS cases that began in 1993, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) and AIDS organizations and health departments that receive 
CDC money constantly promote an alarming message of unfounded AIDS paranoia 
to justify increased federal dollars. Furthermore, protestors say that AIDS 
receives a disproportionately excessive amount of funding given its 
relatively small impact on America's health compared to heart disease, cancer 
and even car accidents. Most of the money, they say, never reaches patients 
but is instead spent on high non-profit salaries and overhead.

As clients of AIDS Inc. eagerly anticipate the results of General Accounting 
Office audits, ACT UP San Francisco urges members of Congress to cut back 
wasteful spending and implement stringent oversight policies for the Ryan 
White CARE Act, established as emergency legislation when AIDS was viewed as 
a crisis.

"The continuing AIDS scandal in Puerto Rico where $2.2 million of federal 
AIDS funding was diverted into political campaigns demonstrates that Congress 
must view Ryan White reauthorization as a deliberate and methodical process 
that considers longstanding AIDS abuses," commented Michael Petrelis of the 
AIDS Accountability Project 
( <A HREF="http://www.accountabilityproject.com/">The AIDS Service Provider 
Accountability Proj..    </A> )."Pelosi's district received $65 million in 
federal AIDS funding last year, yet Tony Leone, the late San Francisco 
Democratic machine activist, complained bitterly that he couldn't even get a 
13¢ diaper when hospitalized. Something is wrong."

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