AIDS activists are a wet dream for the pharmaceutical industry.

Thinking that they have finally reached positions of political power - 
where they play a critical role in determining national policy on a major 
issue - activists are basking in the political high-life. Vying for 
titles like <a 
href="http://www.hivpositive.com/f-NewsLine/f-US-News/us-5-199612-05.html
">"AIDS Czar," having the HIV-positive label is worth some political 
leverage. Kim Mills, of the Human Rights Campaign, said<p>
<pp>"...by having an
          HIV-positive AIDS adviser, Mr. Clinton would show his 
commitment
          to fighting the disease." </pp><p>
 
AIDS activists are deluded if they think that they are responsible for 
changing public policy on HIV and AIDS.

AIDS has been a wet dream for the pharmaceutical industry. Lobbyists for 
the disease are serving the needs of the corporate underpinnings of the 
medical research and treatment complex far better than that complex could 
have hoped. Further, by appointing token homosexuals to moderately 
prominent positions the federal government gets the added perk of being 
"gay friendly" or "committed' or whatever, when in fact it is simply 
continuing to serve the corporate sector with the blessing of those it is 
supposed to be helping.

It takes about 7 years and <a 
href="http://www.sfbt.com/sanfrancisco/stories/012797/focus2.html">$360 
million</a> to see a drug through from idea to product. The largest chunk 
of this money is taken up in the trials, which cost about $130 million 
(phase III trials alone cost about $90 million).

And AIDS activists want to dismantle the drug trial process. The drug 
industry is having a capitalistic orgasm over the increased profit margin 
as a result, and lawmakers are more than happy to scratch the back of the 
pharmaceutical PACs: politicians get more money for  re-election, the 
drug industry saves hundreds of millions a year on testing costs (and 
they get a few other choice pieces of <a 
href="http://www.crp.org/cashin/28phrm.html">legi</a><a 
href="http://www.crp.org/cashin/29phrm2.html">slation</a>pushed through 
to boot), and the White House gets to appoint a few homosexuals and 
HIV-positives to token positions (<a 
href="http://www.thebody.com/aida/thurman.html">not too many 
homosexuals</a>, though) and call it all a dedication to fighting AIDS.

Trashing the trial process, <a 
href="http://www.cdcnac.org/cgi/databases/news/nph-brs.cgi?d=ADNS&u=./adn
s.cgi&s1=&op1=and&co1=and&s2=&op2=and&co2=and&s3=&op3=and&co3=and&s4=&op4
=and&co4=and&s5=&op5=and&co5=and&s6=(vaccine+thailand)[TI]+or+(vaccine+th
ailand)[AB]+or+(vaccine+thailand)[AU]+or+( ">here and abroad</a>, is 
certainly not against the wishes of the drug industry. Surely they would 
have lobbied for doing so themselves if the very concept weren't so 
completely outragous. But now that some <i>activists</i> want it done, 
hell, give them a few offices and we'll do it in their name.

The power that AIDS activists have over HIV/AIDS policy only extends as 
far as their willingness to pursue a corporate-friendly agenda, and no 
further. In fact, that agenda will be pursued beyond what AIDS activists 
wish, and they have only themselves to blame for allowing it in the first 
place.

Why <i>wouldn't</i> <a 
href="http://www.aegis.com/aegis/ads/ads1992/AD922448.html">Burroughs-Wel
lcome</a> (now Glaxo-Wellcome) be friendly to AIDS activists for their 
help in getting drugs to the market faster?

Why <i>wouldn't</i>officials from <a 
href="http://www.aegis.com/aegis/pubs/gmhc/gmhc1994/GM080409.html">Bristo
l-Myers Squibb</a> meet with AIDS activists to lobby their support for 
drug marketing?

Why <i>wouldn't</i> <a 
href="http://www.nam.org.uk/atu/31part2.html">Glaxo-Wellcome</a> meet 
with European activists and give in to their call to "make more [3TC] 
available to the expanded access scheme to ensure that no-one without 
other anti-retroviral options would lose out"?

Why <i>wouldn't</i> <a 
href="http://www.actupgg.org/glaxo1592.html">Glaxo-Wellcome</a> welcome 
even a <i>boycott</i> by AIDS activists, since the purpose of it is to 
make a completely experimental drug marketable even prior to clinical 
trials? It is pharmaceutical heaven.

The result of such a boycott is to put pressure on the FDA to dismantle 
the trial process, which it did and continues to do. It is the door that 
the industry has been waiting for, and now that activists have opened it, 
they are not altogether happy about the beast they are letting in. But 
they have served their purpose, and they'll have a much harder time 
closing that door than they did opening it.

<a href="http://yourhealthdaily.com/267_092497_180002_13877.html:>"Senate 
Passes FDA Reform Bill."</a>" The legislation is critical for the drug 
industry because it renews an expiring program that has already cut drug 
review times dramatically"<p>

As Carl Feldbaum, president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a 
Washington-based trade group, put it, <p>
<pp>
``This may be the most important bill for the biotech industry in its 
history."</pp><p>

Does anyone imagine that this bill was so important <i>not</i> primarily 
for financial reasons, but because they think it will allow them to treat 
AIDS patients more effectively?

But the door is open. Activists were <a 
href="http://www.thebody.com/aac/sep2497.html">immediately aware</a> that 
the FDA reform was not in their best interest.


					"There are few constituencies who support the concept
          of FDA reform as strongly as the one million people
          living with HIV/AIDS in America; but few constituencies
          will be harmed as greatly by this bill," said Daniel
          Zingale, AIDS Action Executive Director. "Gradual
          improvements in the approval process have achieved a
          balance between increased approval time and the
          protection of consumer safety; the Senate bill breaks
          this delicate balance."

"Overhauling the FDA" was <i>never</i> done with the best interest of 
people with AIDS in mind. It was done with the interest of the 
pharmaceutical and biotech industry in mind.

Scientists now are to the medical establishment what economists have long 
been to the banking establishment: advocates for the financial hand that 
feeds them and the political structures that give them power.

"<a href="http://www.aegis.com/aegis/ads/ads1993/AD931825.html">Despite 
objections from AIDS activists</a>,
       who say the value of ddC has not been
                      adequately proven, a panel of
                             scientists is advising the Food and
                     Drug Administration to approve the use
            of the drug as a treatment for HIV."

Activists have provided the cover needed to further the corporate agenda 
that propels HIV/AIDS research in the directions that it does. Usually 
the White House has to apologize for or deny its unflinching service to 
the corporations that put its occupants in power. With AIDS, though, the 
White House can <a 
href="http://www.ca-democratic-party.org/aids.htm">brag about those 
relationships</a>, because they were fostered with the blessing of 
activists, the very same liberal types who generally serve as watchdogs.

Certainly there are those who <a 
href="http://www.impactnews.com/otheropinions.htm:>see through</a> 
Clinton's gay-friendly facade, but even these critiques do not explore 
the larger injustice of how homosexuals have been used as pawns. Not just 
to further an image, but to provide cover for a corporate coup: the 
removal of the costly obsticle of safety in the race to getting drugs to 
the market.

Activists are not determining meaningful policy about drug approval or 
access; they are simply making it possible for that policy to happen with 
their blessing. Getting the FDA overhauled was no problem, since it 
served the larger interests. Getting federally-subsidized needle-exchange 
programs, which serves <i>no</i> corporate interests but <i>would</i> 
save lives by minimizing exposure to a number of contaminants that pass 
on the end of unsterile needles, doesn't get the same warm White House 
reception. AIDS lives be damned. If activists want sterile needle 
programs, they should figure out how to tie such a program to 
significantly increased corporate profits. They will be amazed at how 
quickly the White House warms up to the idea. 

Activists are pawns, not policy makers.

AIDS Authority is redefining AIDS activism, and the AIDS industry isn't 
going to like it.