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They called on President Clinton to lead in the fight against AIDS. The group assembled in sight of the Capitol at a comer of those memorial panels spread across the National Mall. Snare drums beat a steady, solemn tattoo; as the protesters marched under the trees along the northern length of the Quilt, their numbers swelled to a thousand. Many bore small jars or plastic bags. Their lovers and friends were gone, reduced to the fine gray powder they carried in outstretched hands. The column wheeled into full sun near the Washington Monument. The marchers spied Newt Gingrich ambling along 15th Street. A brief verbal exchange be came heated, and the Speaker of the House was hustled into a blue van and driven away. The parting words of one protester rang out, “Fuck you, scum bag.” They turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House and the energy level rose. “U.S. government, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” they chanted. “Bring our dead to your door, we won’t take it anymore.” The last few hundred feet turned into a virtual assault, as the crowd raged and surged to the wrought-iron fence surrounding the grounds. The air filled with puffs of gray as hands reached through the fence and fists hurled leaden ashes over its top. Protesters and media alike grew flecked with the hoary consequences of the plague. Stephen Hardway threw a small jar containing ashes of John Whitmore, his lover who died a year and a half ago. He was quickly hustled away by police but later released. “I had to do it for John,” said the native of Oklahoma City. He wore the broad, open good looks of Middle America upon his face. “I’ve seen too many people die, and scattering the ashes was just not enough for me. I wanted to put it on Bill Clinton’s yard.” Eric Sawyer of ACT UP Golden Gate told the crowd, “We have lacked presidential leadership since the beginning of this AIDS crisis, it’s about time we had some.” “We must stop the Quilt from growing,” said San Franciscan Bill Thome. The list of six actions included guaranteeing access to lifesaving drugs like protease inhibitors, focusing research toward a cure, and lifting the ban on needle exchange to help reduce the spread of AIDS. The ACT UP manifesto read, “Bill Clinton has broken most of his 1992 promises on AIDS. Rather than offer the ‘loud, clear and consistent leadership’ he pledged, Clinton has done just what he condemned Bush for.... After 15 years of genocide, willful ignorance and—under this presi dent— ‘caring’ without action, we demand real presidential leadership from whoever occupies the White House.” ACT UP Philadelphia member Dawn Acero said, “The president loves a good memorial. He will stand there and cry for the cameras until the Quilt covers the entire city of Washington.” Bob Roe hr Clinton sneaks to see the Quilt Bill Clinton visited the Quilt late on Friday afternoon—the president did not. It is a distinc tion worthy of note. The man and his wife had a day off on Oct. 11 to celebrate their 21 st wedding anniversary. There were no official events; the White House calendar was blank. And so when the man stepped upon the National Mall, after even stragglers had left the White House press office to begin a long holiday weekend, it was without the entourage of media that records presidential actions and transmits them to the people. A presidential visit to the Quilt would have topped the evening television news. There was no such story. The White House staged the event so as to avoid lending the power and prestige of the office to the visit, to avoid linking Clinton’s name with AIDS before the broad U.S. public. At the same time it allows his supporters to tout the visit and score points with targeted sexual minority and AIDS audiences through word of mouth and the community press. As Qui It co-founder Cleve Jones gushed, “I ’ ve been trying for nine years to get a president to visit the Quilt, and it finally happened. It was the greatest moment in my life.” Bob Roehr ACT UP demonstrates for lower drug prices Chanting “Your money or your life,” ACT UP accused the pharmaceutical industry of “price gouging AIDS patients for drug therapies” on Oct. 11. The charges were leveled in a report released that day and a demonstration at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers As sociation in Washington, D.C. ACT UP Golden Gate conducted a “market basket” survey of retail prices for five variations of standard drug thera pies for a person liv ing with AIDS. It found the cost for one year of treatment rang- ing from $11,985 for the sim plest, m ini mum anti-HIV com- bination, to $19,500. This does not include a projected $2,000 to pay for recommended blood tests in conjunction with these therapies. Nor does it include doctor’s fees. The pharmaceutical industry historically has been the most profitable sector in the U.S. economy, with profit margins at least twice the average. The report held that “[t]he high cost of all AIDS drugs is a barrier preventing or delaying tens of thousands of people in the United States from receiving life-saving treatment," and con cluded that “AIDS drugs have consistently been brought to market at a price representing all the market will bear.” Roger Garza of Atlanta spoke of the restric tion on the Georgia AIDS Drug Assistance Pro gram: “I’m living in fear. These are miracle drugs, and I’m not going to get access to them. It is a false hope, an illusion of hope.” Peter Cashman of Los Angeles told of similar problems in California: “They talk about hope, but there is absolutely no hope when there is no access. I had to go to the families [of friends] and say, ‘Can I have their drugs?’ while they were dying and after they were dead, so that I could continue on some of these drugs.” Bill Thome of San Francisco said, ‘T ens of thousands of people are going to be added to the Quilt who don’t need to be if the government and the drug companies do not do something about the incredibly high prices of anti-HIV drugs.” Time to approval and development costs have been reduced, said New Yorker Mark Milano, “[b]ut the more we reduce the time to market, the more they raise their prices. These people are making profits off my back and the backs of everyone living with AIDS in America. We are drawing a line in the sand. We are telling them that we insist they roll back their prices." “We die, they make money,” and “No access, no hope, no peace— ACT UP,” the group shouted.