AIDS Treatment News Financial Disclosure Update
In May 1996 we published a statement of our policy on pharmaceutical-company income ("AIDS Treatment News Policy on Pharmaceutical-Company Revenue," issue #247, page 7). None of those policies have changed since then. Except as disclosed in the May 1996 article, AIDS Treatment News has never accepted grants or contributions from organizations whose products we cover or might cover. And we have never carried advertising.AIDS Treatment News is almost entirely funded by subscriptions. And companies or other organizations we report about can subscribe to the newsletter. We were concerned then, and remain concerned now, about developing undue dependence on large orders from companies. From January 1996 until the May 17 issue went to press, large orders (more than five subscriptions or copies to a single company) accounted for less than 13 percent of our income.
This month we re-did the same calculation for all of 1998; the proportion of our income from large orders has grown to 18.4% Of the remaining subscription income (not the large orders), 50% was from individuals, 40% from businesses, and 10% from nonprofits.
In 1996 we overlooked honoraria--payments for speaking to groups--in our disclosure. Honoraria have never been a significant source of our revenue, and accounted for one fifth of one percent of total income in 1998.
Our total 1998 income was under $250,000--about 98% from subscriptions. Major expenses include fast-turnaround printing and first-class postage for about 3,000 individually-mailed subscriptions (including free subscriptions for hundreds of prisoners and others who could not pay), salary and health insurance for a staff of four, office rent in San Francisco, travel to conferences, phones, computers, office supplies, and other expenses.
