These are preliminary thoughts about the ad campaign:

First off, I am very active in the LA HIV/social services community (on many task forces, consortia, CABs etc.) and heard no discussion of the campaign prior to it’s being released into the community. I find this odd, especially since there have been a number of "town hall forums" to address some of the social marketing (I hate that phrase) which AIDS Healthcare Foundation ran earlier this year, which infuriated the community.

There is a LOT of hand-wringing in L.A. HIV circles about men who have sex with men who don’t identify as gay - and how to get them HIV tested and how to target prevention to them. This campaign will not speak to them, of course.

Many of those men are purported to be men who are not white. From the opinion piece by Lorri Jean
While men of color represent the largest group of people living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County, it is rarely noted that the vast majority of them are gay and bisexual men.

It is generally acknowledged that those guys do not identify as "gay" and are not seen as members of 'The Gay Community' (of course, there are many communities in LA, but 'The Gay Community' in LA – the West Hollywood, entrenched crowd who self-identify as 'The Gay Community' generally are white.) So if these posters are going up in West Hollywood or in areas where people who identify as part of the gay community are, they will miss the very population they are saying they want to reach. Also from Lorri Jean’s piece
We have so effectively de-coupled the epidemic from the word 'gay' that most of us don’t even know the degree to which we are impacted

Later, she states:
...men of color represent the largest group of people living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles County.

Is there a possibility that the "we" she is talking about is the white gay community? Do you think that a community of people who are HIV-positive, 75% of whom are men of color might actually not have "forgotten" how hard HIV has impacted their community, but might actually be invisible to "we", 'The Gay Community' because of underlying issues racism, poverty/classism, and different cultural values (which may not look like the ‘gay values’ represented by the Santa Monica Blvd. bar scene, the internet hook-up scene, the bath-house scene, the P&P scene, or the Silverlake leather scene – just random examples of the public face of the ‘gay community’) in the folks who are HIV+ people of color)?

Might it be that there are such deep divisions in Los Angeles that this campaign won't reach anyone it's intended to reach? Or, is it intended to reach those folks who feel represented by the ‘gay community’? If the fact of the matter is that of HIV+ men in Los Angeles County, 75% are men of color, is this ad campaign targeting the 25% of white self-identified gay men it will likely reach? And if so, why does the website profess concern about the numbers of men of color who are HIV-impacted (the majority of HIV-impacted men in LA County)? It feels to me like lip service to people of color on the site, and targeted marketing to young gay-identified white boys who hang out in West Hollywood, read gay magazines and go to gay bars in actuality. I have no problem with white, gay-identified men being targeted for HIV prevention. I support that 100%. But this feels like talking out of both sides of the mouth.

There are, in some studies, HIV seroprevelance rates of 22% in the Los Angeles transgender population. I’ve seen statistics up to 75% in other studies I’m too lazy to look up right now. We don’t see any prevention targeting them. According to the federal government, funding for transwomen at sexual risk has always come from MSM dollars. Wouldn’t it be appropriate then, to include them into a campaign which is likely being funded by prevention dollars which are supposed to target them also? There is a BRG in Los Angeles for transgender women at sexual risk, but there is no correlate at the federal level. Reaching this group might actually be the bridge between gay men; men who are bisexual or who have sex with both men and women; men who have sex with both trans- and non-trans women; and men who might cross racial lines for sex and bring HIV from one community into another. Seems like that might be a good idea. What would people think about "HIV IS A TRANSGENDER DISEASE"? Not comfortable with that? We need to go back to issues of stigma & -phobia, and how they play into this campaign, than.

There are other communities in Los Angeles who are invested in those men (men who have sex with men but who don’t identify as gay or bisexual) getting tested, but also getting targeted prevention information – especially trans- and non-trans women (mostly of color), and people who go through the criminal justice system (again, disproportionately people of color). This campaign doesn’t speak to them either.

Cluster studies have been done which indicate that there is usually a small pool of HIV+ people who are actually responsible for the majority of HIV transmission in a given area. This campaign doesn’t acknowledge the huge numbers of people who are gay and who are actively responsible about staying HIV negative, or, if positive, for making sure that they don’t transmit the virus to other people. It sends a message that "the gay community" is the HIV community" – something which has alienated HIV-negative people – especially youth - for a generation, and which has done (in my estimation) a lot of harm in trying to get people invested in staying HIV-negative, or not to transmit the virus if HIV-positive.

"HIV is a gay disease" feeds on internalized homophobia, and can really distract people from examining their behavior and instead allow folks to see HIV as an inevitability or a punishment for being gay. Indeed, it may read – especially to someone with a lot of internalized homophobia – like the way one gets HIV is by coming out, or by simply being gay. Michael Weinstein (AIDS Healthcare Foundation) said this (paraphrased): HIV is not a gay disease. It is not a woman’s disease. HIV is an immune system disease.

All of that said, if there were simultaneous, similar ad campaigns targeting specific folks in other specific areas of Los Angeles (ie: "HIV is a Black disease" in South LA, or "HIV is a Latina disease" in East LA) – it might sit better with me. Because frankly, as much as 'The Gay Community’ (and in LA that identification still tends to be pretty white) needs to wake up and deal with resurgences in infection rates, this looks from a more cynical point of view like an attempt at a white-gay money grab. The folks who the Prevention Planning Committee want to target for testing and prevention include the following: men who have sex with men (and possibly with women as well - MSMW) who do not identify as gay (who are generally assumed to be non-white); women at sexual risk (who are generally assumed to be non-white), transgender women at sexual risk (who are generally non-white – at least in the Los Angeles transgender social service community the population is primarily Latina/o and Black), and of course, MSM. I think that there is a big concern that since Los Angeles lost a lot of Ryan White money, that there is a real sense of possessiveness on the part of the entrenched "LGBT" and AIDS service providers which basically were started by gay white men, have mostly gay white men on their Boards, and are still most responsive to the needs of gay white men. I think this indicates a level of cultural racism that is so entrenched that no one even realizes that it’s there (and by "no one" I mean those who run the large HIV and "LGBT" organizations, who are generally white and gay). We can’t pretend that there are major issues of racism and sexism in Los Angeles, in gay communities and in service providers, that that in some way this feeds off of that racism and sexism.

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response to the LA Times article referenced above:

Dear Editor, Los Angeles Times:

Regarding the LA Gay & Lesbian Center's new "HIV is a Gay Disease -- Own It, End It" social marketing and advertising campaign ("HIV Ads Embrace, and Stun, Audience", Sharon Bernstein, September 30th): As a gay man living with HIV since 1990, and since that time working in HIV mental health and social services in various community agencies (including the LA Gay & Lesbian Center), and as currently a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in serving gay men, including many living with HIV, I am deeply offended by this campaign. In my seasoned opinion, this campaign is disastrous as much for what it isn't as for what it is. It is a throwback to the early days of the AIDS crisis when anti-gay forces in this country found in AIDS just another "justification" for hate and discrimination, ignoring the fact that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus which can strike anyone, regardlesss of sexual orientation, gender, age, or race. It is an insult not only to thousands of gay men, but also to millions of other men, women, and children who have died from this disease as well as those who fought to spread the message that everyone is at risk for HIV and should act accordingly, practicing sexual harm reduction and drug use harm reduction. This campaign is an enormous affront to women with HIV, most of whom struggle daily to live healthy, productive lives despite a desperate shortage of resources.


As the former Associate Director of Los Angeles Family AIDS Network (LAFAN), a local organization which serves women, children, and adolescents with HIV, I know first-hand the frustrations they face when the general public and even the government see HIV/AIDS as a disease of gay white men.

This campaign is also fatally flawed from what it is not. It does nothing to promote the practical considerations of sexual harm reduction, such as using condoms or choosing oral sex as an alternative to the more risky unprotected anal sex. Consider how many years have elapsed since the beginning of HIV prevention advertising campaigns. "Dress for the Occasion," a groundbreaking prevention poster depicting a cropped (headless) photo of a naked man's torso and crotch with an erect penis covered by a condom, was produced by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1988. That means that a 24-year-old gay man reading the local gay publications where the "gay disease" campaign was recently published (IN Los Angeles and Frontiers) today would have been 6 years old when that campaign came out. It is specious to claim that explicit social marketing campaigns which depict and promote condom use and specific precautions have been tried and failed on the current generation of sexually active gay men; they've never seen them. And in a political climate so extreme we don't even realize how radically conservative it has become, where restrictions on the content of federally-funded campaigns (through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Health and Human Services) are more oppressive than ever, they aren't likely to, despite how effective they might prove to be, as they were in achieving increased condom use among gay men in the late 1980's.

For LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri Jean to cite widespread "complacency" about HIV prevention among gay men without explaining in detail how she came to this conclusion insults, underestimates, and infantilizes the current generation of young adult gay men. Where does this information come from, and how was it gathered? I ask because in my role as a psychotherapist who specializes in serving gay men, I hear every day how HIV is actually quite eminently on the minds of my patients, to the extent where we currently have a divided gay community where far too many HIV negative gay men simply shun HIV positive gay men in all ways, not only for safer sex, but for relationships or even all forms of socialization.

Instead of Real Prevention (the name of the independent organization I co-founded with about a dozen other local AIDS activists in the wake of other recent offensive social marketing campaigns such as, "HIV: Not Fabulous!", "HIV Stops With Me", and "They Deserve to Know"), once again the gay community is being assaulted from within with an expensive social marketing campaign that seeks only to shock rather than to support, teach, and enhance gay men's health via truly relevant and effective HIV prevention. It merely enriches the for-profit coffers of Better World Advertising at the expense of demonizing the entire gay community. The admonishment to "Own It. End It" implies that it is solely up to American gay men living in the local catchment area of the LA Gay & Lesbian Center to end the entire 30-year global AIDS pandemic, and at the risk of making the Understatement of the Year with still a full three months to go in 2006, it's a little more complicated than that. Jean writes about how gay men need to take responsibility for ending the AIDS crisis, then says nothing about how they are to accomplish this. She also laments how it's government funding cuts, not gay men, who impede the effectiveness of recent HIV educational programs and campaigns. How about also considering the role of government censorship, which prohibits sexually explicit materials, or materials that "promote homosexuality," or those which deviate from the current "abstinence only until marriage" mandate on federally-funded content, and then denies that such content restrictions even exist? Is the Center "selling out" just so they can get grant funding from Bush Administration federal government institutional sources like the CDC or the US Department of Health and Human Services? Since when does the LA Gay & Lesbian Center capitulate to the Right Wing at the expense of the local Los Angeles gay community? That's a dark day for the memory of the deceased gay men and lesbian women who have bequeathed fortunes in donations to the Center and whom the Center has named their impressive buildings and programs after. How can this campaign, and Jean's support of it, serve the mission of the Center? How can its Board of Directors tolerate such a contradiction, in this era of scarce funding, an extremely anti-gay president, and continued fierce battles for gay rights across the country?

Only the more self-loathing components of a city's population would tolerate campaigns such as this without indulging in high-visibility acts of profound civil disobedience, just on the dumbed-down principle of blithely pairing a disease with its most prevalent population according to public health statistics. We tolerate "HIV is a Gay Disease" with relatively little broad community protest. Would the same be said if other slogans were in publications and billboards that reached tens of thousands of people on a daily basis? What if we tried some others? Such as: "Tuberculosis is a Mexican Immigrant disease -- Es Suyo -- Terminalo." Or: "Syphilis is an African-American Transgender Sex Worker disease -- Own It, End It." Or: "Bulimia is a Rich White Women's disease -- Own It, End It." Or: "Diabetes is an Obese Person's disease -- Own It, End It." How many of these alternative slogans -- all compelling, from strictly a public health statistics standpoint -- would (appropriately) last more than a day without large-scale vocal protest? If it would be outrageous to insult such other local minority communities in this way (to the point where such campaigns would never even be conceived, let alone receive tens of thousands of community donor dollars or public grant funds to pay a private, for-profit advertising agency in another city to develop it), why is the gay community any different? Why do gay men tolerate such an injustice?

While preventing new HIV infections in all populations is of paramount importance, the job of designing and implementing social marketing campaigns must be approached with more social responsibility and compassion than we have seen of late from several of our institutions (like the Center and recently AIDS Healthcare Foundation) entrusted with this charge in Los Angeles County. We must replace the current popular approach of shock, shame, and stigma as a means of "trendy" HIV prevention and replace it with more practical, intelligent, science-based, fact-based, and compassionate measures. I call on public health officials, the community of gay men, the community of non-gay persons living with or affected by HIV, and other concerned citizens to demand better performance from our local institutions and their leaders. I call on those concerned to demand real prevention to address the very real problems of HIV and its prevention and treatment. I call on the Board of Directors, donors, and constituents of the LA Gay & Lesbian Center to hold those responsible accountable. I call on those concerned to develop and implement awareness and educational campaigns that promote real and practical sexual harm reduction. I call on our institutions to meaningfully address the role of substance abuse (particularly crystal methamphetamine) in HIV prevention. And I call on the gay community to shun their (alleged) complacency not only about HIV prevention but also to fight harder against those who would demean us, from outside, or even from within, our own community.

Sincerely,

Ken Howard, LCSW
West Hollywood, CA

I believe it’s about time that someone had the guts to name the elephant in the room. Guess what, HIV is a gay disease in Los Angeles County; and, I think it’s rather ridiculous to complain that the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center has created a social marketing campaign directed at the gay community. I’m a gay man who has been living with HIV since 1992. I’ve been working to save others from this disease since 1995. And I’m getting really tired of all the semantics and political correctness that has weakened our ability to mount efficacious prevention programming.

Now, it would be really nice if we could create separate billboards for gay men, bisexuals, transgenders, questioning, men on the down low, same-gender-loving, metrosexual, pansexual, and whatever nom de jour we’re slapping on our behavior to make it more palatable to ourselves and/or others but, there isn’t enough money to do so. The way I figure it, if you have a penis and you, at least on occasion, like to play with another person who has a penis then you’re part of the gay community. Whether or not you choose to acknowledge that or avail yourselves of the services and support available to those in our community is entirely up to you. If I invite you to dinner and you choose not to come, it’s not my fault when you starve to death.

And if fear of being stigmatized is keeping you from my dinner table, then get over it. When we choose to act in ways contrary to our nature for fear of how others may perceive or treat us – WE ARE STIGMATIZING OURSELVES! I’ve spoken on many occasions to college classes, community groups, business leaders, and others, sharing my life of drug addiction and HIV infection, with all the inherent “bad” behavior that goes along with using drugs and getting infected with HIV and nobody has condemned me to hell, shamed me, or otherwise made me feel “less than” I wished to feel about myself at the time. I live in a largely heterosexual neighborhood and have been open about my sexuality and my HIV from the first week after I bought my house here. Early on folks were a bit stand-off-ish, five years later I’m mentoring their children (at the parents behest) about sexuality, HIV prevention and drug addiction.

Beyond all this – the divisions in our community are not all the fault of gay, white men. For the folks who want an easy patsy to blame things on, wait until you have enough information not to make a fool of yourself or spoil your argument. Jump out here into my world where almost every service you are able to provide is a fight just to bring enough partners together to do a decent job. For all the clamoring L.A. does to the rest of the Country about our successful collaborations regarding HIV and other health promotion activities, we really suck at it when we look at things we might have accomplished over the last 25 years if we hadn’t let personal, professional, and political differences divide us. Gay, white men did not divide up the prevention and care dollars into little boxes of color, belief, and behavior; our elected officials did that; and I didn’t hear anywhere near the current level of outcry when that happened. And I’m one of many gay, white men who have been asking bisexually-behaving men of color for over ten years, “How can I help prevent HIV among non-gay identified men of color?” The answer has been the same at every conference, training, and individual meeting for the past ten years, “You can’t.” Yet I continue to beat my head against the wall. Why? Because every once in a while one of those men crosses my path and I am actually able to help. And I, for one, will continue to come away from that wall with a bloody head so long as HIV continues to exist in any sub-culture regardless of the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, or how they may be at risk. It’s just the right thing to do.

As to the folks who seem to believe that the HIV conversation hasn’t stopped, or is on the minds of the vast majority of gay men, it’s time to step out of your little boxed up world. Those of us who work in the field, or have practices working with large numbers of gay men can fool ourselves into thinking the HIV conversation is alive and well in our community. Guess what, our client’s/patient’s are talking about HIV because it’s part of what’s got their heads screwed up to the point that they had to come into our office to begin with and, our friends are talking about it because they either work in the field or, because we happen to be at their party. Step on to a college campus and engage your average gay student in a conversation about HIV, you’re more likely to get the brush off due to the topic than anything having to do with their class schedule. Do the same on Santa Monica Boulevard or on Broadway Avenue in Long Beach, you’ll get the same brush off. Most will tell you that they “know all that stuff.” The research doesn’t bear that out folks. In fact, try asking the researchers who attempt to get the data concerning HIV knowledge from gay men – most of it is gathered after they find out they’re HIV-positive because they didn’t have time for it when they thought they knew everything.

Now, I could continue this diatribe for another ten pages and still not be exhausted but, let me leave you with an anecdote and a question.

On my plane trip back from the U.S. Conference on AIDS last week I was seated across the aisle from a gorgeous young man. We made that eye contact throughout the flight that told me I could very well have taken him home with me that night. The silent tension was there all they way from Fort Lauderdale to Long Beach. We struck up a conversation as we taxied in to debark. He was in Long Beach for a company training (nothing to do with HIV.) He asked what there was to do in Long Beach. I went into tourist-counseling mode. I learned in the conversation that he had one month clean from methamphetamine and was HIV negative. I warned him of the prevalence of both. My roommate and I dropped him off at his hotel, after driving him along the “gay strip” in Long Beach, discussing the particulars of the various venues and their respective clientele. I told him to enjoy his trip as he went up to his room at the Hilton, alone.

The question – how many of you would have just taken him home, rather than have the conversation? Cuz damn, he was cute!

First, let me say I respect everyone's opinion and experience here. Gay men want to own their community's long and devastating history with HIV/AIDS, and no one can or should deny that.

But the danger of this campaign is that it leaves everyone else out of AIDS awareness. Straight women are the fastest growing HIV+ population, but if it's a gay disease, why should they be tested? The elder population, straight and queer, are just coming to grips with AIDS in their demographic--but if it's about multiple and/or anonymous partners, then maybe they shouldn't worry. Latinos are wrestling with managing AIDS, but if "gay" (often implying "white") people are owning it, what is it that is reaching into the Latino population?

I see no problem with a campaign targeting gay men if gay men are ready to go there. What I wonder about is if gay men "own" it, does that mean it doesn't belong to any other group? "Own" is a clever, pop term, and maybe rightfully the history and much of the struggle around AIDS suffering and struggle belongs to gay men. But they don't "own" AIDS, they don't control it, have the right to determine access, the power to distribute and dispose of it.

If gay guys claim "ownership," then they relegate everyone else struggling with HIV/AIDS to a "borrowed" syndrome and disease, to reliance and dependence on the gay male community's ownership for acknowledgement, advocacy, treatment, and cure. Ownership is power in our world; the people who "borrow" AIDS are disempowered in their struggle with it.

I read the print on the ad (you have to click on it to enlarge it). It's not very "inviting." It seems to say, "hey, straight folks, thanks for all your help, but your support isn't needed anymore." The stats also make it sound like I'm not at risk. Wooo hoo! (Just kidding.)

If they want to go off on some gay-nationalist trip, fine, but it's really going to alienate a lot of people. Am I reading this right?

Way back in the day, during L. Jean and D. Cummings first tenure as dictators of the LAGLC, there was a campaign of huge black and white posters that said, simply "All Your Friends Are Dead". I rate the current campaign as highly as the past one. It also displays an immature understanding of the factors that place people at risk. Shame and stigma play a large role in an individual's ability to negotiate safer behaviors. While I do agree that the gay community is still the
majority of affected/infected people in LA County (there's a lot of data to support that), I think using a slogan like this further distances individuals at risk from the services that should be perceived as welcoming. In addition, I find it odd that the
'politically savvy' leaders of this organization would perpetuate a mentality already embraced by the US' currently hostile and fascist government. When I was involved at some policy brainstorming sessions at the CDC, a couple of people actually pointed out that Cuba's containment strategies were effective in controlling the epidemic (i.e. having a quarantine area for HIV infected individuals). Perhaps this is what we have to look forward to.

I remember back in 2001, shortly after 9/11, sitting around a table with other CBOs responding to the Syphilis outbreak. AHF's contribution to the campaign brainstorming was a photo of a pretty man's face with the eyes blacked out, accompanying the slogan "Sexual Terrorist". It seems to me that they are taking the same approach as M. Weinstein's staff.

I haven't heard a word in the community about this campaign, apart from people involved in service organizations. I don't think it's very effective for creating discussion. I think HIV, overall, is simply glossed over now in the community. It's not perceived as a high priority of discussion.

To give them some credit, they did have a very positive campaign, recently, about patients having an healthy relationship with their doctor in the clinic. I liked that campaign very much.

I'm a journalism student and I want to do a short project on the campaign, but I have yet to see any of the billboards out in the community. Has anyone seen this around Los Angeles??

": AIDS in Black America,"



Aug. 23, 2006— As the world marked the 25th anniversary of the first reported cases of AIDS this summer, one important story was mostly ignored: AIDS is an epidemic in the African American community and it's spreading fast.

Watch Primetime's special report "Out of Control: AIDS in Black America," Thursday, Aug. 24, at 10 p.m.

Shortly before his cancer diagnosis, Peter Jennings started work on a one-hour documentary devoted solely to the issue of AIDS in Black America. ABC News has now finished his work in a one-hour Special Edition of "Primetime," reported by Terry Moran, airing Thursday, Aug. 24, at 10 PM.

"In America today, AIDS is virtually a black disease, by any measure," says Phill Wilson, executive director of The Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. Wilson also points out that while many black American leaders and celebrities have embraced the cause of the epidemic's toll in Africa, few have devoted similar energy to the crisis here at home.

Jennings's contribution to the hour is a candid group discussion he conducted with HIV-positive African American men in Atlanta about the harsh realities of dealing with AIDS in Black America.

Black Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for over 50 percent of all new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. That infection rate is eight times the rate of whites. Among women, the numbers are even more shocking—- almost 70 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV-positive women in the United States are black women. Black women are 23 times more likely to be diagnosed with AIDS than white women, with heterosexual contact being the overwhelming method of infection in black America.

Terry Moran talks to experts in several key areas that contribute to the spread of AIDS in black America, including the disproportionate number of black men in prison. Prisons have AIDS infection rates five times higher than outside the walls, and many men go into prison HIV negative and come out infected, often without knowing it, since there is no comprehensive national testing, prevention, or treatment program for prison and jail inmates.

The failure of efforts in the 1990s to get federal support for needle exchange programs, which have proven successful in other countries in slowing the spread of AIDS among drug addicts, is also examined. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, remembers the struggle to get the Clinton administration to support such programs in the United States, knowing that without them the epidemic would continue to spread unchecked. "You could see it coming," says Fauci. "The handwriting was on the wall for a long time."



"Out of Control" also reports the results of studies from the Universities of Chicago and North Carolina which shed light on a complex reality that helps explain why heterosexual transmission among African Americans is so common. Black men are more than twice as likely as white men to have multiple female partners at the same time, these studies show. Rates of all sexually transmitted diseases are higher among African Americans than other groups, and once those rates start to rise, says Dr. Jim Thomas of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "It starts a cycle. Because now when a person goes to have sex with someone, the chances that the new partner is already infected are relatively high."



And because homosexuality and bisexuality carry such a strong stigma in black America, African American men may choose to hide their sexual orientation. Men who have sex with men, and then also have sex with women without necessarily telling their female partners about their male encounters, are one of the topics covered in back to back roundtable discussions led by Jennings and Moran. Black men and women talk openly about sexual patterns in black America, denial, secrecy, and shame. "I know of few communities as conservative as the African American community, especially about sex," says Debra Fraser-Howze, CEO of the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS in New York. "And when it comes to homosexuality, it's a real problem. Nobody wants to talk about it."

Moran also reports on the role of the churches, traditionally the most powerful source of political and social activism in black America. Black churches have been silent on AIDS, says The Rev. Calvin Butts Jr., Rector of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "When you see the numbers going up, you know you have not done enough," he says. Adds The Rev. Eugene Rivers of Boston: "I see the black church being challenged as never before. There are going to have to be some tough conversations within the black church, because the black church is the only thing that black people have left. And too many young people are dying because Black leaders have failed their children."



"Out of Control: AIDS in Black America" was produced by Elizabeth Arledge; Senior Producer is Kayce Freed Jennings. The Executive Producer is Tom Yellin.

Susan, it would be helpful for those of us not involved on a day-to-day basis with these issues to have some explanation of the acronyms (CAB, MSM, BRG) so that we don't lose part of the meaning of what you're communicating. Thanks.

Any discussion of HIV, AIDS & the GBLT community needs to include a response from ACT-UP! and other people who don't swallow the HIV = AIDS myth hook, line and sinker. Let's start with a refresher course of what ACT-UP!SF was outlining for several years and any recent evidence of PHARMA propaganda, latest info on nutritional alternatives to weakened immune system..

This from ACT-UP SF!;

"Don't Buy the HIV Lie!

Despite a decade of hype, a sexually transmissible virus called HIV has never been identified according to the principles of viral isolation nor proven to cause AIDS. Sloppy science and the rush to patent a profitable blood test for detecting proteins assumed to mean infection with the gay sex/death virus resulted in the premature announcement in 1984 that HIV was the undisputed cause of AIDS. Since then, a campaign of HIV terror has been unleashed against gay men. HIV antibody testing for alleged viral proteins is continually forced upon us. Pills are pushed down our throats. AIDS is inescapable and the gay male identity has been consumed by it. Yet, upon close scientific and epidemiological scrutiny HIV's power disappears and the true, noninfectious causes of chronic immune suppression reveal themselves: malnutrition, stress, and long-term drug abuse.

Since 1981 hundreds of thousands have died from AIDS. But did all these men and women really die of immune suppression caused by a virus - or were the majority poisoned by the drug AZT? Zidovudine (AZT) was an experimental anti-cancer drug shelved in the sixties because it was found to be too toxic for human use at any dose. In the eighties, the chemical was dusted off and remarketed as an antiviral therapy for AIDS. Propaganda campaigns by the government, bought-off activists, and the drug's manufacturer Glaxo-Wellcome ensured that virtually everyone with an HIV-positive diagnosis, healthy or sick, took the poison. Many got sicker. Most died. None of us will ever forget. Later studies proved that taking AZT hastened death and destroyed quality of life for those on it. Today, AIDS drug dealers ignore the past and push more pills."

read on @;
http://www.actupsf.com/aids/myth/index.htm

It also needs to be said that many gay people are indeed sick and/or dying, though the cause of their suffering will not be solved by PHARMA, nor is the cause believed to be linked to the presence of HIV antibodies in their blood test..

As far as HIV/AIDS being 'owned' by the gay community, try telling that to the people in Africa who are also subjected to PHARMA tests following only four common symptoms of malnutrition and poverty, minus the actual HIV test;

"AIDS in Africa

Unlike in the United States, AIDS in Africa is most frequently diagnosed based on four very imprecise clinical symptoms--diarrhea, fever, persistent cough, and weight loss greater than 10% over two months. HIV antibody tests are not required to diagnose a case of African AIDS. These four clinical symptoms are identical to the problems created by conditions of poverty that have troubled Africa and other developing areas of the world for centuries. In fact, symptoms of the so-called African AIDS epidemic are indistinguishable from the effects of malnutrition, unsanitary drinking and bathing water, and common curable conditions like malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, and parasitic infections.

Rather than solve the problems of African poverty caused by centuries of ruthless Western exploitation, the U.S. government insists on broadcasting the doomsday notion that Africa is suddenly gripped by a deadly, spreading sexual plague. According to these American health authorities, salvation from sickness can only be found in profitable pills manufactured by the white West and exported to black Africa."

read on @;
http://www.actupsf.com/aids/africa/index.htm

The people from ACT-UP! are not alone in reaching the conclusion that pharmaceutical corporations exploit the HIV = AIDS myth to the fullest while completely ignoring nutrition's effects on the human immune system. Dr. Matthias Rath Health Foundation has found evidence that nutrition alone can improve the immune systems of people in Africa who show symptoms of what is often misdiagnosed as AIDS. In addition, recent research indicates that AZT is directly responsible for severe weight loss, a symptom usually attributed to AIDS;

"Keith Alcorn, Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Antiretrovirals, not features of the host or the immune response to HIV, are overwhelmingly responsible for the development of lipoatrophy, according to studies presented on Monday at the Seventh International Workshop on Adverse Drug Reactions and Lipodystrophy in HIV, in Dublin, Ireland.

Controversy in the HIV field has raged for over eight years regarding the causes of fat loss in people receiving antiretroviral treatment, with some continuing to argue that a low baseline CD4 cell count, lower body mass index and race all predict the risk of developing lipoatrophy just as strongly as the use of d4T and AZT (the two drugs thought to be responsible for the condition)."

article cont's @;
http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/3B58DF3A-E1A1-447D-A18F-6ADFD17C2B6A.asp

PHARMA exploits AIDS database @;
http://www.dr-rath-foundation.org.za/

As the GBLT community is a microcosm of greater US society, they also are usually unaware/miseducated of reality in science and how corporations (petrochemical, pharmaceutical, etc..) can alter & interpret science data to their advantage. The mainstream GLBT community with the neoliberal left as their pit bulls defends the HIV = AIDS /+/ PHARMA = CURE mythology with a scary passion (As the neo-con Zionist Jews w/ their Christian Zionist rottweilers defend Zionist Israel's military state apartheid against Palestinians) that AIDS dissidents like ACT-UP! SF who provide evidence that contradicts the HIV=AIDS PHARMA myth are marginalized at best, or villified as either insane, "homophobes" or "self-hating homosexuals" at worst. Sort of like how anti-Zionist peace activists are termed either insane, anti-Semites or "self-hating Jews" by the Zionist lobby if they become outspoken enough to get noticed..

So long as imc remains free speech dissidents will continue to challenge the status quo in both the hetero and GLBT community when discussing HIV/AIDS topics..

As the City initiated the first phase of our 2006-2007 testing campaign, we began a campaign to broaden the impact and reduce the perceived stigma of the Center's "gay disease" social marketing. The explanation follows.

About the City of Los Angeles AIDS Coordinator's Office's "Get Tested" Campaign.

Twenty-five years into the epidemic, no individual or group can hope to end HIV/AIDS until we end the politics of division and set aside the stigma and shame surrounding HIV/AIDS.

To end AIDS, every resident of the City of Los Angeles who is sexually active or has shared needles should commit to getting educated, getting involved and most importantly, getting tested.

To further this goal, The City of Los Angeles AIDS Coordinator's Office developed the "Get Tested" campaign to draw attention to the importance of HIV testing among the diverse populations of Los Angeles.

The campaign calls on people to take responsibility for making change within their communities, while reminding us that HIV affects all of our communities together. HIV/AIDS is, after all, a Human disease.

The first phase of the campaign is comprised of six billboards, which will be placed strategically around the city of Los Angeles for a month beginning on Worlds AIDS Day, December 1, 2006. The stunning imagery, developed by Encite Marketing, will become part of a larger testing campaign to remind Angelinos that HIV is not only a Human disease, but a preventable and treatable disease as well. The campaign has been timed to coincide with a community-based HIV Testing Initiative coordinated by the City.

My office was able to implement this phase of the "Get Tested" campaign through collaboration with the UCLA AIDS Institute. Other community partners include the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team, Bienestar Human Services, The Black AIDS Institute and Women Alive Coalition, as well as the Crossroads School Teen AIDS Ambassadors.

The websites highlighted on the billboards promote these partners, and will provide people with testing locations, information, and linkage to services.

More than twenty-five years into the epidemic, the least we can do is all commit to knowing our status.

Stephen David Simon
AIDS Coordinator
City of Los Angeles