The Bay Area Reporter - November 24, 1999
Jeff Getty, ACT UP/Golden Gate Writers Pool

The invitation to the event suggests that patrons wear "business attire" as they attend a hosted cocktail party followed by sit-down dinner in City Hall's opulent South Light Court. According to the invite, it is to be "A complimentary event celebrating Bay Area Leaders". It is to be hosted by the University of California AIDS Research Institute. But who are they celebrating? None other than DuPont Pharmaceuticals, Willie Brown, and his political machine. (They are also giving an award to Macy's Michael Steinberg, for his laudable fundraising efforts. We do not begrudge Mr. Steinberg).

So World AIDS Day in San Francisco has come down to an invitation-only, haughty and well-dressed event congratulating DuPont Pharmaceuticals for overpricing their new AIDS drug, Sustiva, while failing to perform early drug interaction studies which led to problems for PWAs, nearly bankrupting the nation's AIDS Drug Assistance Program and then giving $1 million of the obscene profits to Willie Brown. Brown then gives the money to UCSF's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) -- with political strings attached of course -- for AIDS prevention administrative salaries.

In other words, make the already strapped AIDS support system and assistance programs, and the already quite broke PWA population, pay for political favor with Willie Brown, and vaguely pay to prevent the spread of the disease. Why not just place a tax on people with AIDS and give that money directly to prevention? After all, they are the ones spreading the disease aren't they? Or for that matter, we could place a tax on people with cancer and use the money to clean up toxic waste dumps.

To most AIDS activists around the country, DuPont has been one of the most recalcitrant and sleazy drug companies they have ever encountered. One prominent activist who wishes to remain anonymous said, "DuPont is the 'used car dealership' of AIDS pharmaceuticals." Known for price gouging and extrapolating misleading information from competitors' drug studies and then releasing the manipulated findings as proof of Sustiva's superiority, and refusing to listen to or work with community activists, DuPont has turned its PR machine to full throttle. Using the atrocious profits they have taken from PWAs, they are throwing the money around the AIDS industry all over the country -- buying loyalty, buying favors, and mostly buying silence. And the industry is shamelessly stuffing the money down their blouses.

At a recent AIDS conference held here in San Francisco, many activists boycotted DuPont's "community meeting" because they had made large donations to most of the organizations whose employees were invited in the name of community. Many new and unknown activists and AIDS industry employees were invited to the meeting and offered and additional individual $700 in personal stipend cash for their attendance. Never before has any drug company so blatantly tried to buy off the AIDS community.

So it's no surprise that Willie Brown had his hand out as well. What's interesting is the initiative he showed in grabbing the money and using it for political gain. Though many activists have been critical of his failed attempts to gain control of all federal AIDS money coming into San Francisco over the years, now he is to be honored along with a sleazy self-serving drug company on World AIDS Day, a day on which we are supposed to think about AIDS' impact upon the world, a world where thanks to drug companies -- including DuPont's -- lobbying, most poor countries go without any drugs or hope at all.

And who could fault UC for taking the money? After all, the money can be put to good use and the CAPS program is facing a shortage this year. But still, it's dirty money. The last thing PWAs and their activists needed to hear was that DuPont was to receive an AIDS leadership award. Okay, take the cash if you must, but don't honor dirty money -- don't gross us out on World AIDS Day.

For those who might care about the fate of the rest of the world on World AIDS Day, there will be a multi-city push for Third World countries to be allowed cheap access to AIDS drugs, or to be allowed to produce them off-license. This important effort is being spearheaded by ACT UP/Philadelphia and will include press conferences and resolutions across the U.S. Activists are hoping that San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano will speak to the issue on the big day. For obvious political reasons, Ammiano -- whose lover died of AIDS -- was not invited to the celebration at City Hall. So much the better.

Of course there will also be the usual media visits to the National AIDS Memorial Grove, home of the $6,000 rock that commemorates and collects money on behalf of our dead. Death does equal silence. It is usually very quiet there.
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