Four chapters of ACT UP have produced a controversial full-page ad scheduled to appear in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call urging Congress to “Pull the Plug on AID$ Fraud” and to “Cut AIDS Funding Now!”
ACT UP San Francisco, Hollywood, Atlanta and Toronto assert that AIDS is outrageously overfunded and that National Institutes of Health (NIH) research priorities are unfair to those with other diseases. In addition, activists charge that millions of taxpayer dollars intended to help sick patients are being squandered on high salaries; illegally funneled into political campaigns; stolen to pay for personal luxuries like Jaguar automobiles, jet skis, tropical vacations and shopping trips to Neiman Marcus; and used to subsidize pharmaceutical industry production of drugs that cause deformity, death and diseases indistinguishable from AIDS.
The ad features examples of alleged AIDS fraud highlighted with pictures of stamped-out red ribbons. The controversial message and provocative imagery apparently proved to be too much for two Washington, D.C. newspapers. Both The Hill, a Congressional weekly, and The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper, cancelled publication of the ad despite being provided with 45 pages of press clippings, personal correspondence and public financial records supporting allegations of widespread AIDS corruption.
Larry Kramer, the cofounder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Inc., and the founder of ACT UP, wrote a response to the ACT UP chapters: “I am certain you are aware of the many historically important deeds ACT UP has fought to bring about, most particularly the acceleration of the FDA drug-approval process so that patients with life-threatening illnesses might obtain benefits years before they formerly were able to. At the height of ACT UP’s mobilizations, from the late 1980s and into the mid-’90s, there were some 140 chapters of ACT UP around the globe. Today, when activists and activism for any causes are hard to come by, there are still some dozen ACT UP chapters, much smaller certainly, working energetically to eradicate AIDS. Unfortunately, because ACT UP chapters can be set up by anyone (under the all-too-democratic principles that we tried to live by for so many years), several groups calling themselves ACT UP have been usurped by people who do not stand for the code of ethics and beliefs, and moral humanitarianism, that motivate the original chapters. I specifically refer to people calling themselves ACT UP San Francisco, ACT UP Hollywood, ACT UP Atlanta, and ACT UP Toronto. All of these have been infiltrated by a number of people whose behavior I can only characterize as psychopathic, people who lie and cause great willful damage. I cannot for the life of me comprehend what motivates them. To maintain that AIDS is not caused by HIV, to disrupt government and other official hearings to argue that money should not be voted for AIDS research and patient aid, to utilize vicious smear campaigns and to threaten legitimate activists and ACT UP members with actual physical harm is beyond any intelligent comprehension. Truly, in the face of our worldwide plague, such actions can only be construed as crazy. I write this letter to ask that these people not be listened to, and to request that such aberrant inhumane activities not be held against the wonderful work that legitimate ACT UP chapters have accomplished and continue to accomplish. I particularly point all this out to all members of the U.S. Congress and to foreign countries and their dignitaries who might have been swayed by the propaganda directed particularly at them. The fallacious deeds and arguments spewed by these distressing malcontents must not be allowed to disrupt the forthcoming and vitally important International AIDS Conference in Durban.”