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Date: Fri, 12 May 1995 04:16:51 -0400
From:DaveACTUP+@aol.com
Subject: ACT UP zaps Tony Fauci
I was one of the organizers of the action in SF against Fauci. Here is the
text of the flyer that we distributed to the diners at the Project Inform
dinner.
Hope it helps to clarify our position. Take care. ACT UP!
********
"You are responsible for all government funded AIDS treatment research. In
the name of right, you make decisions that cost the lives of others. I call
the decisions you are making acts of murder."
Larry Kramer
"An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci"
San Francisco Examiner, June 26, 1988
Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer and should not be the guest of honor at any
event that reflects on the past decade of the AIDS crisis. Your refusal to
hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths
of thousands of Queers. Your present inaction is causing today's increase in
HIV infection outside of the Queer community. We are outraged that Project
Inform, an organization that supposedly works on behalf of the infected
community, would insult us by bringing you to our city. You can't hide the
fact that you are nothing but a despicable Reagan-era holdover and drug
company mouthpiece.
With 270,000 dead from AIDS and millions more infected with HIV, you should
not be honored at a dinner. You should be put before a firing squad.
Clinical trials: government sanctioned mass murder of PWAs
Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer because you oversee government sponsored
clinical trials that test and retest combinations of immunosuppressive, toxic
therapies that kill people with HIV. The majority of U.S. clinical trials
involve worthless antivirals like AZT combined with some other drug
(generally another toxic antiviral). What these tests have proven is that you
are able to piss away billions of dollars testing dangerous compounds that DO
NOTHING to improve the quality of life, to stop opportunistic infections or
to extend survival for people with HIV. AZT, 3TC, ddI, ddC, d4T and the
current crop of protease inhibitors are nothing but poison. Ten years of the
plague has shown us that trying to kill the virus kills people with AIDS, and
you, Dr. Fauci, know it.
How long will it take you to start focusing on the immune system, how to
boost it and how to prevent the opportunistic infections that are killing
people with AIDS? Even you admit that "the immune response against HIV is
extremely powerful and is clearly more effective than any of the therapeutic
approaches currently available in controlling virus replication." Still , you
give your blessing to clinical trials of highly profitable toxins that
destroy PWAs' already compromised immune systems.
CD4s and viral load: a marketing exec's wet dream
Anthony Fauci, you are a liar because you have known for years that CD4
counts are a travesty of a surrogate marker that, through drug company
coercion, have been elevated to the status of "a standard." Now that everyone
else knows it too, you and your corporate drug company cronies are urging
researchers to foist another useless marker, peripheral blood viral load
counts, on our frightened, desperate community. Peripheral blood viral load
fluctuates in blood circulation and offers virtually no indication of the
health or disease progression in HIV+ people. According to a recent article
in the April 1995 issue of Lancet concerning viral replication, "the
principle that virus suppression will produce a major clinical benefit must
remain an article of faith." Information like that isn't stopping doctors of
death like Marcus Conant from insisting that "patients should be treated
earlier with combination therapy, and we should be using markers such as PCR
and branched DNA to measure viral load as surrogate markers in clinical
trials."