1992 Boston Conference to Be Moved

On August 16 the Harvard AIDS Institute, organizer of the Eighth International Conference on AIDS which had been scheduled for May 24 through 29 in Boston, announced that it was cancelling the Boston meeting and would attempt to reschedule it outside the United States. The Eighth International Conference -- subtitled "A World United Against AIDS" -- is the major scientific meeting on AIDS planned for 1992; ten to fifteen thousand delegates had been expected. A new site has not been chosen -- London, Montreal, and Madrid have been mentioned as possibilities -- and it might prove impossible to move so large a conference on short notice.

The cancellation occurred because U. S. travel restrictions may prevent delegates with HIV from entering the United States to attend the conference -- restrictions almost unanimously opposed by medical and public-health experts within the U. S. and throughout the world. Months of negotiation between conference organizers and U. S. officials failed to produce any satisfactory resolution. Harvard could not wait any longer without increasing the risk of the conference being cancelled outright.

Most AIDS experts and organizations who spoke on the matter supported Harvard's decision to move the conference; some opposed it.

Also on August 16, Max Essex, M. D., resigned as chairman of the Eighth International Conference. He was replaced by Jonathan Mann, M. D. -- a significant appointment because Dr. Mann built the Global Programme on AIDS within the World Health Organization (WHO) -- a monumentally successful effort to support and coordinate AIDS prevention programs throughout the world. Dr. Mann concluded agreements to establish AIDS programs in 155 of the of the 166 countries in WHO during his tenure at that organization, which ended in March 1990; he has the international contacts which will be needed for the difficult task of moving the conference on short notice.

AIDS TREATMENT NEWS published an in-depth background article on the U. S. restrictions which led to the current situation (issue #128, June 7, 1991).

Comment

Widespread press reports incorrectly described Harvard's decision to move the Eighth International Conference on AIDS as a "protest" against U. S. AIDS policy. Harvard University is neither a protest organization nor an AIDS organization. It moved the conference because it had been handed a situation in which a successful Boston meeting was all but impossible.

In June 1990 the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in San Francisco took place under travel restrictions for persons with HIV identical to those in place today (they were suspended by special waiver for a few days before and after the conference, in order to avoid the arrest of delegates on their way to the meeting). As a result of the travel restrictions, dozens of major organizations -- including the International Red Cross, and the governments of France and other nations -- boycotted that conference. There is no count of the number of people who stayed away, but there were probably thousands.

Recently there has been talk that the U. S. might ease the conditions for individual waivers (to allow persons with HIV to enter the United States for certain purposes), but no action has been taken nor promises made. Holding the Boston conference under the current restrictions would lead to a repeat of the 1990 boycott, and to much sharper protests by AIDS activists than occurred last time.

Thousands of protesters demonstrated in San Francisco in June 1990, but the protests were focused against U. S. policy and not against the conference; great care was taken then not to disrupt any scientific meetings. Now there are widespread demands that the Boston conference not open at all under the current restrictions -- plus widespread abhorrence of special waivers for an elite, high-profile meeting while malicious regulations are left in place for others. Harvard would have faced not only a boycott, but also the need to hold the major scientific meeting on AIDS of 1992 behind police lines, resulting in serious divisiveness within the AIDS community -- and a tragic diversion of effort and attention that should be focused elsewhere. The best choice available was to move the conference, despite major planning disruptions and serious financial costs to Harvard and others.

All this has happened for one reason only -- because right- wing politicians and religious fundamentalists want to send the message that homosexuality is not acceptable (see background in AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #128). The come-lately argument that excluding persons with HIV will save public money in health-care and welfare costs is and always has been a sham. It may seem grotesque that in the face of a worldwide epidemic, the nation with the most AIDS research and the most cases would jeopardize international health efforts due to obsession with homosexuality, but that is what is happening. The Bush Administration has evidently decided that the political right can deliver more votes than people concerned about AIDS. It has violated both the letter and the spirit of the Immigration Reform Act of 1990 by overruling public-health experts, including its own Department of Health and Human Services, in pursuit of political advantage.