AIDS
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Although more than 12,000 people
travelled to San Francisco for the Sixth
International Conference on AIDS June 20-
24, the tone of the gathering was set by the
relative few who did not come. Faced with the
US Immigration and Naturalization Service
(INS) refusal to change its policy excluding
persons infected with HIV from entering the
country, more than 100 groups boycotted the
proceedings and provided those choosing to
attend with a symbol of all that has been
wrong with the institutional response to
AIDS. The barriers raised by the INS,
however, were only the most obvious barriers
the international AIDS community was forced
to acknowledge.
By far the most palpable barriers inside the
conference were those continuing to separate
the scientific and medical community from
AIDS activists. Ever since the activists’
repeated disruptions of last year’s Montreal
conference, there had been fears that protests
this year could turn violent, especially as the
conference coincided with the celebration of
Lesbian and Gay Pride Week in the unofficial
gay capital o f the world.
Such fears proved to unfounded. Although
more than 300 members of ACT UP and their
supporters were arrested in the course of daily
demonstrations outside the convention hall,
their numbers and their actions never
vindicated the unprecedented security
precautions taken by local police. Scores of
police officers in riot gear became a fixture at
the conference site.
In addition to the INS policy, the
demonstrations, which generally attracted
about 1000 participants, targeted limited
access to the conference for persons living
with HIV disease and the exclusion of
women, children and people of color from
research and treatm ent While several
speakers inside the conference lauded “the
San Francisco Model” of treatment in
community settings, local activists offered an
alternative ‘T o u r of the Ruins,” highlighting
insufficient state and city funding and the
inherent limitations of a “model” so reliant on
volunteers subject to burnout.
Inside the conference, the exchange of
information proceeded with few interruptions.
The scientific sessions reported several
hopeful if limited developments, but the
sessions devoted to issues of social policy
indicated a more disturbing lack of progress.
On a panel devoted to human rights, speakers
from India and Mexico presented pessimistic
readings of the situation in their respective
countries, and Matt Coles of the Northern
. California ACLU offered an impressionistic
survey o f AIDS’ complex impact on gay
rights in the US. Speaking at the opening
ceremonies, Peter Staley of ACT UP/New
York questioned the sincerity of the official
US effort against AIDS when, instead of
addressing the conference. President Bush
chose to attend a North Carolina fundraiser
for Senator Jesse Helms, the homophobic
author of the INS HIV exclusion clause.
If the activists proved not to be a major
disrupting force at this year’s meetings, it may
have been because conference organizers had
made real progress toward including them in
the proceedings. More importantly, there were
signs that scientists and public health officials
were coming to accept the activists as major
“players” in the race to end the AIDS crisis. A
session on “Community Organization and
Activism” attracted an overflow crowd that
listened as a variety of advocates for
minorities, IV dtj>g users and children with
AIDS described the social barriers to
translating science into public policy.
Despite such gestures toward inclusion,
much of the important work on AIDS going
on in San Francisco last month took place
outside the international conference. In
addition to the demonstrations, these
extramural events included several “satellite”
conferences where researchers and activisits
could meet on less contested “tu rf’ to discuss
alternative treatments and avenues of research
that leading scientists continue to block.
Most impressive in this regard were a
series of nighttime “community outreach
sessions.” Free and open to the public, these
panels held out the hope that old adversaries
like ACT UP and the FDA could cooperate in
the future.
If it was surprising to hear Anthony Fauci
of the National Institute of Allergies and
Infectious Diseases agree with ACT UP about
the need for a radically new kind of drug trial,
it was sobering to hear ACT UP acknowledge
that, as the nature of epidemic changed, AIDS
aclivisim had to do more to reach beyond its
original base in the gay and lesbian
community. Dr. Mindy Fullilove of Columbia
University’s HIV Center for Clinical and
Behavioral Studies reminded everyone that in
approaching minority communities, we would
have to learn to appreciate “the kind of
expertise that exists outside the walls of the
university.”
Throughout the week there was a growing
awareness that AIDS pointed to the need for
national health care. While this was the point
of several of the demonstrators’ chants,
Washington lobbyist Jean McGuire warned
this is “not something we can be glib about.”
In justifying their decision to shout down
Secretary of Health and Social Services Louis
Sullivan during the closing ceremonies, ACT
UP said it was time to turn words into action.
That was the lesson for all in San Francisco.
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