Research Initiative Treatment Action (RITA!); Vol 5, No. 2 April 1999
L. Joel Martinez

Dear Readers,

I often tell my friends that many of the major decisions in my life have been made through a process that resembles the act of falling down the stairs. First, I am at the top of the stairs then suddenly I am somewhere else.

Some people seem to make decisions about drugs much the same way. Visitors to the center ask me to comment on that drug—the "one with the guy climbing the mountain." Or the drug with the "whale and the goldfish."

I feel fortunate to be able to attach words, facts and data to those images and to be able to distract the visitor's gaze from the pretty picture to the true complexity of the situation.

I marvel constantly at the amount of misdirection that takes place in the market place. "But it's not deception," my partner argues, "it's free trade." Buyer-beware or not, I find myself in a constant state of skepticism.

What does it say? What does it not say? What is implied? What is insinuated but not said? Am I buying this simply because I saw a glossy ad for it?

We tend to stick with what is familiar and comforting. There is danger in this lackadaisical decision making.

We, at The Center for AIDS, are outside this world of advertisements and markets. Thus, we have the tax code designation as a nonprofit 501(c) 3 corporation. It is our job to brush away from our vision the motes of the market place in order to get the clearest view possible.

We have no obligation to give any therapy or company greater visibility or more "play," as one company requested. Our constituents are persons who are HIV-infected and those who care for them.

Our duty to them is to play fair, to be impartial, to report the data and comment on it. We perform our chores one step at a time, careful not to stumble. We are vigilant and, most importantly, we are unrelentingly wary of those who would use our cover as a community-based organization to promote their own self-interests.

Very truly yours,

The Center for AIDS:
Hope & Remembrance Project
L. Joel Martinez
Acting Editor

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Copyright © 1999 - Research Initiative Treatment Action (RITA!). Reproduced with permission. RITA! is published by The Center for AIDS. Contact Thomas Gegeny, MS, ELS, Editor, RITA! for permission to reproduce RITA!. tom@centerforaids.org. http://www.centerforaids.org

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