SurviveAIDS

(the activists formerlyknown as ACT UP Golden Gate)

We meet on the 2nd & 4th Tuesdays at 7:30PM at 592B Castro Street Our mailing address is 584 Castro Street, PMB 542 S.F., CA 94114 Our phone number is 415-252-9200, fax 415-262-9277 Contact us by email Visit our old ACT UP Golden Gate WWW Site

• Information regarding AIDS drug advertising
• Survive AIDS press
• Our letter to the Community

Boycott ACT UP / San Francisco’s pot club! They want to cut AIDS funding...
Shouldn’t we cut theirs? A list of other sources for medical marijuana is here .

Mission Statement

We are a network of AIDS Advocates, Activists, PWAs and theirsupporters.

We identify and help solve problems that threaten the well-beingand and survival of people with AIDS/HIV. The time has past whenall that could be done is help people with AIDS die. Our goalis to keep people with AIDS alive and improve & sustain theirquality of life.

We endeavor to join with other in coalitions to lobby, communicate,educate, mentor and create and maintain an infrastructure to supportHIV/AIDS activism and research.

We reserve the right to mobilize direct action whenever necessary.

A Letter to the Community:

On February 29th the members of ACT UP Golden Gate voted tochange its name to “Survive AIDS!”. We are changingour name to put an end to the continuing confusion in the communitybetween ACT UP Golden Gate and a group of people using the name“ACT UP San Francisco”

We feel that we owe the community that has supported us overthe years an explanation for why we are changing our name. Thedecision to change our name was difficult and has been discussedinternally for over a year. On one side were people who felt anaffiliation with the name ACT UP, what it stands for, and itslong list of accomplishments. Others felt we were spending toomuch time and energy explaining to media, physicians and the communitywhich ACT UP chapter we were. In the end we all agreed that wewanted to spend our time and energy fighting to save and improvesurvival of people with AIDS/HIV.

Some background history is important to set the context forthis decision. ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) beganin 1987 in New York City and was the foundation of the AIDS directaction movement. ACT UP was the catalyst for changing the waythe public, the medical establishment, and the government respondedto the AIDS crisis. Never before has there been a patients rightsand advocacy group that has had such a tangible impact on societythrough direct action and civil disobedience.

In San Francisco, ACT UP Golden Gate split from the originalACT UP San Francisco in 1990. ACT UP Golden Gate concentratedon issues involving treatment and treatment access while ACT UPSan Francisco focused on broader social issues involving publicpolicy and politics. Over the next several years the two ACT UPchapters worked separately and together on local and nationalAIDS issues.

Over time ACT UP San Francisco became controlled by individualswho had a different philosophy concerning AIDS treatment. Thisin itself was not a problem. The problem was that any one whodisagreed with them on this one issue was shouted down, intimidatedand driven out of the group. Long term members, seeing the originalACT UP mission and philosophy destroyed, were forced out of thegroup in disgust.

This new ACT UP San Francisco chapter harassed and stalkedmembers of the AIDS community who disagreed with them about AIDStreatment strategy, first locally, then at national AIDS events.As time went on their tactics became more violent, culminatingin physical assaults, which runs counter to the ACT UP philosophyof non-violent civil disobedience.

At present, ACT UP San Francisco has aligned itself with groupsthat believe HIV does not cause AIDS and that it is the use ofanti-HIV medications which make people get sick and die. Thoseof us who are taking these drugs can accept that the drugs maynot work for everyone, that we often experience negative sideeffects, and that the long term consequences of taking the drugsare unknown. But the reality is that many of us would have diedalong time ago without anti-HIV therapy and prophylaxis medications.HIV would eventually win the battle.

Because of our belief about HIV and treatment, ACT UP GoldenGate continued our work to improve the survival of people withAIDS. Some of our accomplishments over the last few years include:

• Negotiated price reductions from pharmaceutical companies for a number of AIDS related drugs.
• Forced pharmaceutical companies to provide new AIDS drugs on a compassionate basis to people who did not qualify for drug trials but had run our of other treatment options.
• Participated in local and national community advisory boards to ensure drug trials were conducted in ways that benefited participants and were not wasteful.
• Worked with other organizations in San Francisco to force AIDS non-profits to be more accountable to the citizens of San Francisco.
• Forced Kaiser Permanente to accept HIV disease as a specialty, which require unique diagnostic viral load tests, and initiated a HIV patient advisory board.
• Worked with city housing groups to halt owner move-in evictions of the elderly, disabled and people with AIDS.
• Worked with other AIDS organizations to get the government and pharmaceutical companies to study the side effects of current AIDS treatments.
• Obtained one million dollars in state funds for UCSF to study organ transplantation in HIV+ people. Prior to this, the surgeons at UCSF routinely denied life-saving transplant procedures to anyone who was HIV+.
• Wrote a regular column for the B.A.R. to keep the community informed about current issues regarding HIV/AIDS. We continue to work on most things listed above. New projects we are working on include:
• Helping to ensure that people who are experimenting with treatment interruption are doing so safely and that we collect as much useful data as we can.
• Continue to monitor HIV clinical trials through various local and national community advisory groups.
• Watchdog for new HIV therapies in the pipeline, including new targets for antiviral therapy as well as immune-based therapies and modalities.
• Advocate for people with AIDS needing treatment education, access and advice.
• Monitor the continuing demise of managed health care, and make sure funding is available to keep our health standards at the high level we have demanded over the years.

We will also mobilize people with AIDS to organize direct actionas necessary.

Most social movements evolve over time, and the AIDS movementhas been through similar, if not more dramatic transformations.And now, since the AIDS crisis is not over, we will strive tocontinue our important work without the confusion over the name.We invite all interested advocates to help us carry on our newmission to help people survive with HIV until there is a cure.

SILENCE=DEATH. SURVIVE AIDS!

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www.ol-belegging.nl connotea.org user bromfietsverzekering
connotea.org user kostbaarhedenverzekering
aboutus.org User:Simone Ansems
aboutus.org User:Anne Wiltink
aboutus.org User:Babette Veenstra
aboutus.org User:Lisette Wijnands
aboutus.org User:Martine Vermeer
aboutus.org User:Monique Bogers
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