AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
	332 Bleecker St, Suite PMB5
	New York, NY 10014
	(v) 212/966-4873

http://www.actupny.com http://www.actupny.org

February 12, 2012

Dear Friends, 

In March of this year, ACT UP will mark the 25th Anniversary of our founding and our first historic direct action on Wall Street. We’re writing to you with a call to join in celebrating this important milestone, and with an urgent plea to help rejuvenate the Fight to End AIDS. After 25 years of victory after victory, which have saved countless thousands of lives worldwide, we find that some of our most hard-won advances are crumbling – and so action is again urgently needed.

What:Meeting of present and former AIDS activists to plan 25th Anniversary events and actions.

When:Monday, February 20, 2012  –  8 pm
Where:  LGBT Center, 208 W. 13th Street (between 7th & 8th Aves.)

Why:To revitalize the fight against HIV/AIDS at a crucial time.

HIV stigma rages on. 34 U.S. states and two US territories have laws that criminalize “potential exposure to HIV without prior disclosure of HIV status,” whether or not transmission actually occurred, and whether or not condoms were used. Criminalization of HIV that disregards science, risk, intent and whether or not a harm was inflicted drives stigma and furthers HIV transmission.

AIDS Drug Assistance Programs nationwide have waiting lists of 4,600 people needing potentially life-saving treatment. In the U.S. less than 19 percent of HIV positive people have obtained an undetectable viral load. The federal ban on funding for syringe exchange, which ACT UP and many others fought to repeal for years, was reinstated in 2011 in a bill signed by President Obama.  U.S. annual HIV infection rates are nearly 50,000 people/year. 1 in 5 gay/bisexual men have HIV infection in the 21 U.S. cities hardest hit by AIDS  — and nearly half don’t know it, a CDC survey found. More than 140,000 U.S. households with HIV lack stable housing, which has been shown to be key in compliance with HIV treatment, effective HIV management and life extension. Globally, annual HIV infections have dropped from 3.5 million in 1995 to 2.6 million in 2010, in part because – as a stunning study found last year – treatment with HIV medication cuts HIV transmission by over 95%. Similarly, global annual HIV/AIDS deaths have dropped from 2.2 million to under 2 million.  These advances in the fight against AIDS are threatened by President Obama’s failure to fulfill his campaign promise of $50 billion over 5 years for global AIDS, even when he had Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Obama’s rollback has given other world leaders an excuse for cutting their own commitments. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates have taken aim at people living with, and at risk for, HIV/AIDS. Just two examples:Ron Paul defended his 1987 comments saying that people with HIV should be forced to pay for their own care. Mitt Romney refused to commit to funding to the U.S. Global AIDS initiative and suggested that HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment may take a back seat to his goal of reducing deficit spending.

We now have the means to end AIDS — now backed by scientific proof — if we can marshall the political will. This summer, we will experience the “perfect storm” scenario to focus the attention of the media — and through them, of the world– on the HIV epidemic. Two major news events will converge when Campaign 2012 enters the final buildup to the two major parties’ political conventions — paired with the first International AIDS Conference happening on U.S. soil since 1990 – after further U.S. conferences were forbidden until the ban on HIV-positive immigrants and visitors was lifted in 2010, a victory for the global AIDS activist movement.

The International AIDS Conferences provide rare occasions for the world’s media to focus on the global AIDS crisis. Presidential campaigns have been the next most successful timeframes for activists to engage the media around HIV/AIDS issues. For example, we had much media attention on HIV/AIDS when we chased candidate Bill Clinton around the country with the Campaign 92 Tour.The U.S. and 192 other governments signed the 2011 UN Declaration on HIV/AIDS, in which they committed to put 15 million people on HIV treatments by the year 2015.  Also last year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, still head of the NIH’s infectious disease program, publicly stated, “The fact that treatment of HIV-infected adults is also prevention gives us the wherewithal, even in the absence of an effective vaccine, to begin to control and ultimately end the AIDS pandemic.”These events show a supposed commitment by the U.S. government to act to end AIDS and a statement by its highest scientific expert that we have the tools to do so. We must seize this opportunity to focus the media’s attention on these facts to ensure our government takes the steps to scale up the funding to end AIDS, instead of panicking in the financial downturn and destroying the world’s amazing recent progress in that fight. To accomplish that, we need your help!  We need your activism! We need you to return to the streets! We need your financial support! Please join us in a meeting to discuss how we can use the 25th anniversary to rejuvenate the AIDS movement:

Yours in the struggle to end AIDS,

• Ken Bing
• Michael Tikili
• John Riley
• Nanette Kazaoka
• Sean Strub
• Avram Finkelstein
• Emmaia Gelman 
• James Wentzy