The Bay Area Reporter - October 1, 1999
Homer Hobi, ACT UP Golden Gate Writers Pool

A drug recycling project must be done diligently to maintain an uninterrupted supply of medications for the PWAs (People living with AIDS/HIV). This writer began one such project called Positive Humanists & Friends AIDS Medicine Recycling Project. In a few developing countries, governmental programs supply PWAs with medications. Unfortunately, several governments do not have an iron clad commitment to supplying medications. And in August, two events happened which threw the world of recycled medications into turmoil.

First, an urgent e-mail was received from Gabriel Serra, an openly gay, HIV-positive activist in the humanist movement in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Serra reported that the provincial government of Buenos Aires had run out of antiviral and other AIDS medications. It is not clear when or if they will have more for their current patient load. Serra has been working with a group of poor HIV-positive drag queens in order to raise their self-esteem. They are all affected by this crisis. The different governmental bodies are saying the responsibility for this disaster belongs to someone else. The clinic they are attending is treating about 500 HIV-positive people. They have asked for emergency help.

Closer to home, San Francisco's Healing Alternatives Foundation (HAF) recently went out of business. The problem is that organization was a major recipient of donated medications and a primary Bay Area supplier for people overseas. The AIDS Medicine Recycling Project currently has flyers at the doorstep of HAF's closed office so that people will have a place to donate medications.

In addition to these cases, another person supplying medications to South Africa wants to quit doing recycled medications.

Positive Humanists & Friends, a local nonprofit group, is now working in collaboration with ACT UP/Golden Gate to gather more medications so more people can be helped. We are so very lucky here in San Francisco (not to say that we don't have problems) in that we have drug access. It is unthinkable that the federal government would simply end the ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program) without any warning. Yet we are not so far away from states that have lotteries for receiving ADAP. And, Native Americans on reservations are not covered under ADAP. But overall we have it good in the United States.

Worldwide, the epidemic is raging completely out of control. AIDS is not simply a disease, it is social malaise. If the gay community here had not mobilized and organized, it is likely that there would have been little improvement. For this, and for the suffering and heroism displayed since the beginning of the pandemic, the gay community deserves adulation. However, we cannot be complacent now that we have the medications which have drastically reduced death rates.

If anything, we have entered the most dangerous phase of the pandemic. Many of those activists who have knowledge about how to get things moving and make changes, and who have brought us to the fortunate situation where we are today in the Bay Area, are now slowing down or taking a break. Unless something is done to revitalize AIDS activism we could face a crisis here, but certainly, we will have abandoned solidarity with PWAs throughout the world. This is ugly. We are fortunate, we have enough care to keep us healthy. PWAs in the developing world desperately need our help. Many of these folks are part of the gay HIV-positive community who face a double battle -- anti-gay, as well as anti-AIDS government sanctioned discrimination.

Now is not the time to turn our backs. We need to strengthen our resolve to end the pandemic and to bring care and medicines to the rest of the world. The ultimate measure of any people (and today we are a global village) is how they treat and care for the sick, elderly, and dispossessed. There is a saying, "A good person is one who fights for justice for a day, a better person is one who fights for a year, a very good person is one who fights for many years, and then there are the invincibles, who fight for justice for a lifetime."

The people in Argentina have asked for Viracept (nelfinavir), 3TC (Epivir), and d4T (Zerit). If you have any of these medicines, or any other medicines you are not taking, please contact us so they can be sent to Argentina and other destinations as soon as possible.

Contact Homer Hobi by phone at (415) 285-0606 or by e-mail at phumanists@hotmail.com. To see the website of the AIDS Medicine Recycling Project of Positive Humanists & Friends, look at www.geo.to/aidsrx.
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