From: MPetrelis@aol.com Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 14:50:30 EDT Subject: Target UCSF AIDS programs; Aug. 7 at 12 noon Target UCSF's CAPS and ARI programs!! WHAT: News Conference and Picket Line WHERE: UCSF/Center for AIDS Prevention Studies 74 New Montgomery Street, at Market San Francisco, CA WHEN: Monday, August 7 TIME: 12 noon - 1:00 PM WHY: A news conference and picket line will take place to protest against the secrecy and duplicity of the University of California at San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) and AIDS Research Institute (ARI), on Monday, August 7 from 12 noon until 1:00 PM. Additionally, sunflowers representing the need for sunshine principles to be adhered to by CAPS and ARI will be presented to officials of both entities. DEMANDS: CAPS and ARI must - 1. hold monthly public meetings to explain its research and findings, 2. disclose all contracts and protocols, 3. release data pertaining salaries and compensation packages of all employees making over $50,000, 4. establish a community advisory board, CAB, composed of at least 50 percent of community members who don't work for the AIDS industry. The CAPS and ARI programs currently receive an estimated $68 million annually from assorted federal, state and local health agencies. Yet CAPS and ARI arrogantly refuses to hold any public meetings to inform taxpayers about what researchers do with the money and what the funds accomplish. Unlike nonprofit agencies in the private sector which must provide the public with an annual IRS 990 tax return showing a group's budget, revenue, expenses, salaries, etc., CAPS and ARI apparently don't have to share any comparable fiscal information with the public since it is a state university. Hence, in San Francisco an organization like the SF AIDS Foundation (SFAF), in exchange for receiving city dollars must adhere to the nonprofit sunshine statute. That means the board of directors of the SFAF must allow the public into at least two board meetings annually and provide access to the group's public IRS 990 form, along with audited financial statements. Despite my loathing of SFAF executive director Pat Christen, I do give her credit for meeting the bare minimum legal sunshine requirements and for making her IRS 990 form available on the group's web site Believe it or not, when all is said and done, the SFAF does allow for extremely limited public scrutiny and input over programs and fiscal matters. The same can't be said of CAPS and ARI. Which is odd, given that the communications director for CAPS and ARI is Jeff Sheehy, who in 1997 was a leading proponent of the San Francisco nonprofit sunshine statute in his former role as president of the Harvey Milk Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club. Back in 1997 Sheehy gave several interviews in which he lambasted Christen and the SFAF for their lack of openness and accountability. "Nonprofits that provide health care on behalf of the city are wearing a city hat, and provide essential services that people need to live. They ought to have to follow the same [open] process of the city," Sheehy told the SF Chronicle on November 25, 1997. In referring to the SFAF, Sheehy told the Bay Area Reporter (10/30/97), "What started out as a partnership between the community and these emergent nonprofits has become something top-down with a decision-making process both inscrutable to outsiders and impervious to the wishes of clients." To really drive the accountability point home Sheehy was quoted in the November 27, 1997 Bay Area Reporter saying, "Many nonprofits, especially AIDS nonprofits, provide essential services funded with government money. They therefore should operate according to the democratic principles of openness, access, and due process." Great sentiments I agree with totally. But why does Sheehy now remain silent about having his employers at CAPS and ARI meet those same principles? Ever since the SF Chronicle ran a sensationalistic front page above-the-fold story about an alleged tripling of the HIV rate here, planted thanks to a news release from Sheehy, I have been calling Sheehy asking for documentation backing up the claims. Since the research supposedly proving an increase of HIV rates was carried out by Dr. Willi McFarland, an employee of both the SF Department of Public Health's AIDS Office and CAPS, but was heavily promoted by Sheehy and CAPS, I believe UCSF has a big responsibility to provide data to the public about McFarland's research. Needless to say, Sheehy has not returned any of my calls, nor has he mailed me any documents backing up the allegations of HIV surging. To further complicate matters, Sheehy currently sits on the San Francisco Democratic Central Committee since he was elected to the body last November. I am not opposed to AIDS industry types also being involved in partisan politics, but given the political battles in Washington over reauthorizing the Ryan White CARE Act and other AIDS funding concerns, I do think a conflict of interests exists with Sheehy wearing a Democratic Party hat and a UCSF hat. Looking at it another way, if the communications director for the Centers for Disease Control's AIDS programs also served as member of her local Republic Party central committee, legitimate questions would be raised. Same could be said if the public relations director for the SFAF sat on a major political party's central committee. Yet, not a word of inquiry about Sheehy's dual roles has been heard since he became a spokesperson for CAPS and ARI. (Call me cynical, but I do believe some of Sheehy's press work for CAPS and ARI is directly related to his responsibilities as a Democratic Party official.) Regarding research alleging HIV increases by McFarland, under the auspices of CAPS, I have left voice mail messages for half a dozen people at CAPS and ARI, requesting additional information. I simply want to see the all of data, the protocol, contracts and abstracts related to McFarland's latest concocted voodoo epidemiology. After all, McFarland was quoted in the June 30 SF Chronicle saying HIV in San Francisco was at "sub-Saharan African levels of transmission." If that is true, then shouldn't the gay community and the entire city have access to the scientific proof and numbers behind such an outrageous statement? I say yes. In his July 27 column in the Bay Area Reporter Sheehy wrote, "The prevalence of HIV among gay men in San Francisco stands somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the population and has been at least that since I got here in 1988. That is a sub-Saharan rate and the fact that the number may be going up instead of down should be extremely alarming." Well, it is indeed "alarming," if true. But where is the scientific proof, Mr. Sheehy? The answer may be found in comments from Sheehy's fellow accountability and sunshine colleague in 1997 Jeff Getty, formerly of ACT UP/Golden Gate, now Survive AIDS. "Something has gone terribly wrong. The [San Francisco AIDS] foundation takes in $18 million a year, but I bet only $1 million of that actually goes to people with AIDS. You can't get the exact numbers because they don't want you to know the truth," Getty was quoted as saying in the January 29, 1998 edition of the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper. Those same words easily apply to CAPS and ARI. You can't get the exact numbers involved in McFarland's research, along with other specific figures like salaries of CAPS and ARI directors because Sheehy and his bosses at UCSF don't want us to know the truth. I ask you to join me on August 7 from 12 noon until 1:00 PM at the UCSF CAPS and ARI headquarters at 74 Montgomery Street. A bouquet of large sunflowers, symbolizing openness, access and sunshine, will be presented to UCSF. No arrests are planned. Michael Petrelis Welcome to AIDS-STATISTICS www.AIDS-statistics.com 2215-R Market Street, #413 San Francisco, CA 94114