San Francisco Protest Against Meeting Disruptions

On April 4, over 25 leading AIDS activists and organizers in San Francisco -- all of them persons with HIV -- published a letter asking a group calling itself ACT UP San Francisco to stop disrupting public forums on treatment options for AIDS and HIV. About a half-dozen persons identifying themselves as ACT UP San Francisco have targeted public forums of the Community Consortium (a local medical association which includes the physicians who treat most of the people with HIV in the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties), and of Project Inform and others.

This long-simmering controversy escalated with the disruption of a Community Consortium meeting at Davies Hospital on March 16. A scuffle occurred before the police arrived to restore order, and speakers Donald Abrams, M.D., and Paul Volberding, M.D., were drowned out or unable to complete their talks on viral load and other topics.

From an ACT UP San Francisco press release after the incident: "'This game of promoting expensive, harmful drugs by touting their temporary effects on dubious surrogate markers like CD4 counts and blood viral load must stop now,' demands ACT UP member Todd Swindell. 'We're dying while AIDS research is held hostage by drug companies and the virologists, clinicians and so-called AIDS advocates on their payrolls. This isn't science; it's exploitation of the sick in its most vile form.'" ("ACT UP SF Questions Turn Drug Company Forum into Brawl in the Hall," ACT UP San Francisco, March 17.)

From the April 4 activists' statement opposing the meeting disruptions: "People with AIDS have the right to choose our own sources of information and the wisdom to know whom to believe. We are committing ourselves now to stop any such disruptions in the future. We need your support... Please contact the mayor, your supervisors, the Department of Public Health, AIDS organizations, the media, forum presenters and especially 'ACT UP SF'. Let them know you need safety and treatment information."

A January 15 release from ACT UP San Francisco described an earlier incident (against a Project Inform Town Hall meeting on January 11, 1996) as part of a series: "The disruption was the first in a planned series of attacks on mainstream AIDS organizations in San Francisco that ACT UP SF has identified as embroiled in conflict of interest through their acceptance of pharmaceutical industry contributions."

Comment

The main concern has been that disruptions have been serious enough to prevent information from being presented; people leave and do not come back. Also, physicians and researchers are becoming reluctant to speak in the San Francisco area. The result is that people are prevented from getting information they need for making treatment decisions.

ACT UP San Francisco can legitimately raise its issues, including the excessive influence of pharmaceutical companies, in the question and answer periods of community forums, or by distributing flyers, or by holding its own meetings. What is not legitimate is to prevent others from getting the treatment information they have come to hear.

For more information on this controversy, you can obtain a copy of the April 4 statement and list of signers from Ben Collins, 415/558-8669, ext. 211. To reach ACT UP San Francisco, call 415/522-2907, or call Michael Bellefountaine, 415/487-9954. Or see the debates on the Internet newsgroup sci.med.aids -- including "Demean, Dupe, Dose, Die" (March 25, from "DaveACTUP," strongly supportive of ACT Up San Francisco although not signed by that organization), and replies from Martin Delaney and others. Delaney's March 28 reply addresses the substance of the scientific disputes, as well as the allegations of pharmaceutical-company influence. If you cannot easily get it by computer, a copy is available from Ben Collins, or from the Project Inform hotline, 800/822-7422 or 415/558-9051, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Pacific time, Monday through Saturday. (Project Inform also has a World Wide Web site, http://www.projinf.org.)

Note: AIDS TREATMENT NEWS often reports on the treatment activist work of ACT UP/Golden Gate (415/252-9200). ACT UP/Golden Gate wants the public to know that it is not affiliated with ACT UP San Francisco. ACT UP/Golden Gate signed the April 4 statement, and also issued its own March 28 press release condemning the meeting disruptions.