AIDS Scare.As an attention-grabbing headline, "AIDS Activists Call for Cutting Federal Spending on AIDS" is right up there with "Man Bites Dog." Still, some Washington, D.C.-area newspapers saw so little newsworthiness in the story that they wouldn't even run an ad that four ACT-UP ACT-UP AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power AIDS A NY-based organization of AIDS activists which aggressively pursue legislation favoring improved treatment for Pts with AIDS or HIV infection. See AIDS. chapters put together to announce their surprising position. The ad argued that government AIDS expenditures have so far been largely misdirected and scandal-ridden. Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Capitol Hill, ran the AIDS advocacy Main article: HIV and AIDS misconceptions Patient Zero theory Some advocates hold that the disease was introduced by a flight attendant named Gaetan Dugas, referred to as "Patient Zero". Other advocates argue that there were cases of AIDS much earlier than initially known. groups' advertisement on June 22. But The Hill, another paper focused on Congress, and The Washington Blade The Washington Blade is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) newspaper in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The Blade is the oldest LGBT newspaper in the United States and second largest by circulation, behind Gay City News of New York City. , a gay paper, both refused to do so, claiming the ad made undocumented assertions. (The Web site www.actupsf.com does provide extensive support, mostly from newspaper articles, for the claims.) The ad's sponsors--the San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , Atlanta, Hollywood, and Toronto chapters of ACT-Up--are renegades in the larger AIDS activist community: They think that HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. is not a necessary or sufficient cause of AIDS. The ad did not discuss that point, instead stressing more typical objections to government spending Government spending or government expenditure consists of government purchases, which can be financed by seigniorage, taxes, or government borrowing. It is considered to be one of the major components of gross domestic product. , including the misuse of money from the Ryan White Act (an umbrella program name for federal AIDS money) and other AIDS assistance programs. The ad notes that $2.2 million in federal money meant for AIDS was rerouted toward political payoffs and bribes in Puerto Rico (a case that has so far led to more than 10 criminal convictions). The ad also points out that many popular AIDS drugs paid for with federal dollars have life-threatening side effects Side effects Effects of a proposed project on other parts of the firm. . ACT-UP San Francisco spokesman Michael Belle-fountaine says the group hasn't been able to get much support from any politicians for its specific position, which calls for redirecting AIDS funds to more general health and housing aid for any sick American. (The ad also featured a bar graph showing that AIDS gets more federal money per victim than any other disease.) "A lot of the right-wingers who might jump on defunding AIDS wouldn't jump on the overall push of the ads," Bellefountaine explains. But he also notes that some of the horror stories of fund misuse were brought up in congressional debates over this year's funding for the Ryan White Act. |
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