Join us this Monday, March 27 at noon.

The first ACT UP action took place on March 24, 1987. 36 years later, we have a persisting threat—AIDS denialism. Following our community letter we’re protesting at Shame on Simon demanding they end distribution of an AIDS denialist book.

WHAT: Shame on Simon & Schuster – ACT UP’s 36th Anniversary Action

WHEN: Mon 3/27. 12 – 1PM

WHERE: 1230 6th Ave. Btwn 48 and 49th St.

TRAINS: E,B,D,F,M to 47-50 St Rockefeller Center

We need you to join ACT UP for its 36th Anniversary Action to demand that Simon & Schuster refuse publishing a book that promotes AIDS denialism and pseudoscience.

On Tuesday, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster is due to launch a book that purports to reveal “the flaws in all HIV testing” and how “the AIDS establishment has led us into a biomedical disaster through incompetence, fraud, and deceit.”

This book follows the blueprint of decades of AIDS denialism that has spread HIV misinformation and stigma while undermining efforts toward HIV education and ensuring that people with HIV lead long and healthy lives.

Join ACT UP in love and anger as we face this new generation of AIDS denialism that is supercharged by the anti-vax movement and the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ hate sweeping the nation.

We will rally and picket on the sidewalk outside Simon & Schuster’s midtown office.

ACT UP! Fight Back! Fight AIDS!

See you there!

Can’t make it? Want to do more?

Consider:

• Visiting your local bookseller explaining to them what’s happening. Asking that they consider moving Simon & Schuster distributed titles away from endcaps and other prominent locations to the bottom shelf. Remember that, buying a non-Simon & Schuster distributed book (while vocalizing your anger over Simon & Schuster) in support of your favorite, local bookstore, sends an economic message that will ripple throughout the industry!

• Signing on to the Simon & Schuster demand letter.

• Reaching out on social media and spreading the word that we’re not going to stop until Simon & Schuster meets our demands:

  • Simon & Schuster immediately end plans for distribution of the book, The Real AIDS Epidemic: How the Tragic HIV Mistake Threatens Us All by Rebecca Culshaw.

  • Simon & Schuster reassess other future releases to ensure that other books won’t assist similar damage to public health.

  • Simon & Schuster create a public health working group to assure community members that this will not happen again.

• Contacting some of Simon & Schuster’s bestselling authors (or their estates) and asking how they feel about their publisher’s dangerous actions in distributing and platforming someone like Rebecca Culshaw. They include,

  • Andrew Solomon

  • Annie Proulx

  • Audrey Niffenegger

  • Bob Woodward

  • Carrie Fisher

  • Chapo Trap House

  • Cornelius Ryan

  • Dan Brown

  • David McCullough

  • Dick Cheney

  • Donald Trump

  • Doris Kearns Goodwin

  • Doris Lessing

  • Ernest Hemingway

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald

  • Frank McCourt

  • Glenn Beck

  • Kayleigh McEnany

  • Ludwig Bemelmans

  • Harold Robbins

  • Hendrik Willem van Loon

  • Hillary Clinton

  • Howard Stern

  • Hunter S. Thompson

  • Jack Paar

  • Jackie Collins

  • James Riley

  • Janet Evanovich

  • Jimmy Carter

  • Jodi Picoult

  • John Bolton

  • John Irving

  • Joseph Heller

  • Jennette McCurdy

  • Judith Rossner

  • Kay Thompson

  • Larry McMurtry

  • Lana Del Rey

  • Maddox

  • Mark R. Levin

  • Mary Higgins Clark

  • P. G. Wodehouse

  • Peter Hook

  • Philippa Gregory

  • R. L. Stine

  • Sandra Brown

  • Shel Silverstein

  • Siddhartha Mukherjee

  • Sister Souljah

  • Stephen E. Ambrose

  • Stephen King

  • Thomas Berger

  • Thomas Wolfe

  • Ursula K. Le Guin

  • Walter Isaacson

  • Zoella

• Contacting Simon & Schuster’s executives and publishers and expressing how disappointed you are with their too big to care about public health attitude. They include,

  • Jonathan Karp, President and Chief Executive Officer

  • Jon Anderson, President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  • Jennifer Bergstrom, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Gallery Publishing Group

  • Ian Chapman, Chief Executive and Publisher, Simon & Schuster UK and International

  • David Snow, Vice President, Human Resources

  • Karen Cooper, Vice President and Publisher, Adams Media

  • Jofie Ferrari-Adler, Vice President and Publisher, Avid Reader Press

  • Libby McGuire, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Atria Publishing Group

  • Dennis Eulau, Executive Vice President, Chief Operations Officer & Chief Financial Officer

  • Nan Graham, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Scribner

  • Kevin Hanson, President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Canada

  • Dana Canedy, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster

  • Chris Lynch, President and Publisher, Simon & Schuster Audio

  • Veronica Jordan, Executive Vice President and General Counsel

  • Liz Perl, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

  • Gary Urda, Senior Vice President, Sales

  • Adam Rothberg, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications

  • Dan Ruffino, Managing Director, Simon & Schuster Australia

Download (PDF)

About ACT UP

Founded in 1987, ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis. ACT UP currently meets every Monday night (via zoom).

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