ACT-UP: It’s not just about AIDS anymore

The letter was intriguing enough by itself. Under the once-familiar logo of ACT-UP Atlanta ran a full-page missive charging that the organization’s name — long synonymous with no-holds-barred “silence = death” AIDS activism — has been usurped by individuals whose goals are exactly opposite those of the original members. The letter, signed by 30 members of the original ACT-UP Atlanta, say that their organization’s name and reputation is being used for positions antithetical to those of the founders of ACT-UP Atlanta a dozen years ago, who fought long and hard for AIDS research funding. The new group’s aim — an aim reluctantly confirmed by the “new” ACT-UP Atlanta’s founder — is nothing less then the de-funding of all AIDS research, according to a full-page ad that ran in the June 22 issue of the Congressional Roll-Call.

The call to de-fund AIDS research was timed to coincide with the international AIDS conference in South Africa last week, and highlights a longstanding controversy among AIDS researchers and activists. Since the ’80s, a small cadre of “AIDS dissenters” have used the research of a relative handful of scientists to argue that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS. Others posit that AIDS itself is a myth, a figment of the imagination of doctors who have allowed themselves to be fooled by other mysterious maladies, or who are conniving with drug companies and the “research establishment” to funnel money into deliberately flawed, but highly profitable, research.

The controversies surrounding AIDS research and treatment are complex, and even many AIDS activists who ardently support further research — animal and otherwise — admit to be being torn over the degree of causal linkage between HIV and AIDS.

“There are a lot of areas that should be explored,” says Mona Bennett, a veteran member of the original ACT-UP Atlanta and an author of the letter debunking the newer organization. “But to deny that HIV causes AIDS, to say it’s a benign virus, is to sentence people to death.”

Bennett and the other signatories of the letter were baffled as to the identities of these “new” ACT-UP activists. But a telephone number on the ad (corrected for a typo in the area code) leads to an answering machine identifying the Southeastern regional office of In Defense of Animals, an animal-rights group with a long history of protests aimed at the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University, where millions of dollars in AIDS research has been performed.

And, while local gay-rights activists are puzzled about the identities of the new ACT-UP members, they’re very well known to the animal rights movement. That’s because the new ACT-UP Atlanta is, in fact, a creation of Jean Barnes, the Southeast director of In Defense of Animals. A visit to the ACT-UP Atlanta website reveals plenty of photos and articles about animal testing and research — but precious little original content about AIDS. There are a couple of links to websites dealing with needle-exchange and one gay publication, and even photos of ACT-UP marchers proudly carrying a banner at last month’s PRIDE march.

The question for Bennett and her aggrieved colleagues is whether the hard-won name of ACT-UP — the “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power” — has suddenly been misappropriated by people pursuing an animal-rights agenda in the guise of AIDS activism.

Barnes vehemently objects.

“There’s nothing sudden about it,” she says. “It all started about three years ago, when we started working ACT-UP San Francisco (the first ACT-UP chapter to oppose AIDS testing). We tried to find out what was going on with the local ACT-UP. We went to the door and knocked and knocked, and nobody answered. We tried to call, and the phone machine was always full. We’d go to the meetings, and nobody showed up. So we just decided to start our own organization for people who have HIV and AIDS.”

And is her concern for people with AIDS, or for animal testing?

“We believe they go hand-in-hand.”

New ACT-UP members disagree about even the basics of the group’s positions. Barnes believes in AIDS but resolutely agrees that funding should be stripped for AIDS research. Veteran animal rights activist Sue McCrosky has “no personal belief” that HIV causes AIDS, but wants funding for research to continue, as long as the research doesn’t involve animals.

While the competing theories and priorities of the “new” ACT-UP chapters sort themselves out, the “old” ACT-UP Atlanta is still deciding what to do.

“We’re still considering our options, contemplating legal action,” she says. “And we’re asking that they stop using our name. If they truly believe that HIV is benign and does not cause AIDS, they should not call themselves an ‘AIDS Coalition.’ It doesn’t make sense.”






Activism
Issues
The Blotter
COVID Updates
Latest News
Current Issue