Imagine you are walking along a secluded beach and, unbeknownst to you, quicksand lurks ahead...

Continue on your path unwittingly and you will sink, but a prominently-positioned sign close to the quicksand's edge informs you of the potential consequences of your actions should you choose to ignore it. Now, would you expect its message to be clear and hardhitting to spell out the danger and risk of drowning? Or ambiguous, light in tone and enticing, implying that the experience might even be fun? Naturally, you would expect the sign to demonise the quicksand and graphically spell out its pitfalls. Whether or not the sign scares or offends others who choose to ignore its message and proceed regardless is irrelevant because it is vital that you are equipped with clearcut, undiluted information from which to make an informed choice whether or not to continue; information which, ultimately, may prevent you sinking and drowning.

In a humane and civilised society we expect to be warned of such dangers ahead of time. Indeed, were such warnings not in place the resultant casualties and fatalities would result in mass uproar, demands for public inquiries and for negligent heads to roll. So why the wall of silence that permits the know-it-all academics who infest AID$ Inc. to get away with not clearly signposting the similarly real, life-endangering threats faced by gay men today, while denigrating the efforts and achievements of those who do seek to raise the alarm?

"Huge amounts of resources have been invested globally by academics out to clear meth’s name, but most of those commentators are attached to the AIDS industry. If it 'fessed up to the severity of the issue it would have to do more to address it."
~ Urban [samesame.com]

In 2003, in an email richly disdainful of LIFE OR METH's “dubious�?methods, the smug head of London's GMFA, Matthew Hodson, insisted that the "gay men's health charity" would not be singling out meth over less harmful drugs like K and ecstasy and scoffed that I should go away and leave such work to “professionals�? while Australia's ACON - which, in the words of one of its own board-members, presides over Sub-Saharan Africa levels of HIV; has resolutely denied any link between meth use and HIV transmission; has referred to gay men in internal memos as "the garbage level"; and whose sole response to its crystal crisis, aside from legitimising it with user enabling guidelines (i.e. "Wrap in cigarette paper before swallowing"... "Keep a spare pipe available in case one becomes damaged or too hot"... etc.) has been to attack and smear community lobbyists who question its failures, labeling them "homophobic", "liars" and "self-professed addicts in recovery" - has described LIFE OR METH's efforts as “laughable�?

If LIFE OR METH's frank and honest approach is "laughable", then the PC methodology and ideology subscribed to by ACON, THT and GMFA et al to deny real and present threats to public health borders on the pathologically deranged.

In April 2003 I advised ACON staff at their gleaming Sydney HQ that unless they acted swiftly to signpost the very real dangers of meth to contain and curtail its spread within the local gay community, a severe price would be paid further down the line. They scorned my "unscientific" evidence, ignored the warning, and today Australia is in the grip of its biggest and deadliest drug epidemic, with up to 100,000 meth addicts. 75 fatalities were linked to meth in 2005 alone, along with an escalation in violent crime, mental health problems, hospital admissions and HIV transmissions. Latest figures show that 1.5m Australians have now tried meth - almost 10% of the population - and NSW is by far the most afflicted state with 20,000+ addicts; a catastrophe that ACON could have largely averted. 

"Ice has become a menace in our society, tearing apart many Australian families and communities... Those who are addicted to ice lose all semblance of control and lapse into violent, uncontrolled, often homicidal rage...it is a frightening drug and we need a special emphasis."
~ Former Prime Minister John Howard  [Announcing in 2007 a $130m fund to tackle hard drug use in Australia, part of which was allocated to ACON]

"I thought we should hit [meth] as hard and as quickly as possible, that there was no way of dressing up the drug... Trying to protect it or make it look like it is simply a matter of academia or clinical discussion would hide the very real personal impacts of the drug."
~ Christopher Pyne [Government minister on the 2007 Australian crystal meth TV campaign]

"The graphic nature of [the TV campaign] is to show the dangers of continued use but also to scare people about trying it in the first place because we haven't got accurate figures about how addictive it is... We think
it can be up to 40% addicted. In other words, 40% of
people who take it get addicted to it, and that's horrendous."
~ Dr. John Herron [Chairman of the Australian National Council on Drugs]

"I try not to be critical of agencies. I simply state the fact: we saw this great illegal express train coming down the line."
~ Ken Maroney [NSW Police Commissioner]

"[CAAMA - Community for Action Against Meth Amphetamine] have raised an excellent point about the
need for explicit and hardhitting warnings about the dangers of meth use. This would be consistent with our policy."
~ The Green Party

"It will take a concerted community action to get government action. It is also likely that concerned citizens like CAAMA will have to work hard to ensure that community based-programmes are effective."
~ Clover Moore [MP and Lord Mayor of Sydney]

ACON's failure to act in the face of conclusive evidence spurred Sydneysider Shayne Chester to co-found CAAMA in 2006, which documents the rise of meth in Australia and timelines ACON's systematic refusal to intervene. "Those who can only understand addiction theoretically have actually contributed to this harm," says Chester. "It's why their work is known as harm maintenance in 12-step circles. To have insisted that meth was "just another drug", and then used HIV dollars to print step-by-step instructions on how to use, was just criminally insane."

Although CAAMA has lobbied both state and federal politicians, leading to questions being raised in Australia's parliament, ACON have refused radio and television requests to appear alongside Chester to debate the meth epidemic, which he maintains can only be aleviated by hardhitting educational programs that, he says, "fulfill our rights to honest information. In the 12 months since mine and other voices evolved into a community lobby, the AIDS industry has finally been forced to shift its policy and has recently put its name to an NSW Health Department meth poster, and is finally conceding that meth is not just any party drug. Sadly, in the time that took, hundreds more people became addicted in Sydney as the debate degenerated
into a schoolgirlish catfight." 
[See also The Merchants of HIV]

In September 2007, ACON issued a "video commercial" entitled The Glam Reaper - a "high-camp, high-fun" drag pastiche - to "mark" the 20th anniversary of the Grim Reaper television ad, Australia's most effective HIV prevention campaign to date. "What is the message here?" asks Chester. "HIV/AIDS used to be grim but now it's glam? Come join the happy HIV picnic, everyone's doing it?" At the same time, in an apparent bid to repair its tattered image, ACON - which last year spent $20,000 on a minor cosmetic logo change at the same time that a food shelter for needy HIVers closed due to a $20,000 shortfall - renamed its workers "angels" and pleaded with potential cash donors on its website to "Help support our angels' work and make a difference to the lives of many people in our community".

A community in which, statistically, one in three HIVers go to bed hungry and the lives of countless MSM are being wrecked by ACON's drug and HIV misinformation strategies...

"Here's my donation," says Chester. "It's a mirror. ACON need to understand that community volunteers don't want medals or haloes, nor do they work for position, exploitation, acknowledgement, opportunity, status, self-interest or financial reward. It is a selfless, unconditional endeavour because some of us actually care about others in our tribe and have a vague notion that we are all here for each other. The Sydney GLBQT
community would be well served if ACON's board learned that lesson from its volunteers. And probably better served if it just disappeared altogether."

Despite threats of physical violence, attempts to
hack into and sabotage the CAAMA website and a campaign of intimidation, Chester continues to keep the flame of truth alive with significant success, having amassed a legion of support from socially aware community members.

"It's time to clear away the politically correct nonsense, to stop focusing on fripperies such as gay marriage and other diversions and start focusing on something that will really assist gay men and the wider community: an intense campaign aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention."
~ John Heard [The Australian]

In New York City, the counterproductive PC harm reduction/user enabling approach implemented by the city's largest MSM sexual health agency, Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) - which waited until 2004 before issuing its first major report on the local community's chronic addiction to crystal - has also prompted local residents to take an enlightened, hardline approach. Bruce Kellerhouse and Dan Carlson launched the HIV Forum in 2003 with long-time AIDS activist Peter Staley, who self-funded several anti-meth bus shelter posters. They remain unconvinced that the multi-million dollar-funded GMHC is doing anywhere near enough to warn Manhattan's gay community about major health scares. "GMHC continue to do what they do best, which is to suck up all the community resources," Kellerhouse says. "They are lacking in visibility for HIV prevention for gay men."

Spencer Cox founded The Medius Institute in 2005 to create research programs and policies that support gay men in living healthier, happier lives and to promote policy progress on gay men's health in New York. Cox took implicit aim at GMHC when he told Gay City News in February 2007: "A lot of the AIDS organisations only stop by our neighbourhoods when they've got their hands stretched out for a donation. It speaks volumes that the first anti-meth programs in Chelsea were created and funded by concerned individuals." 
[See also Dereliction of Duty]

The upfront approach of committed groups like UFA, CAAMA and HIV Forum in effectively responding to the horror that is meth abuse clearly works, so why does it annoy AID$ Inc. so? And why the abrasive unresponsiveness and resistance towards informed outsiders?

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
~ Arthur Schopenhauer [Philosopher]

Such hostility has emerged out of a definite context. Organisations built on hierarchal structures by nature constrain and block the free flow of ideas and productivity. This is fine for commerce-based industries but potentially catastrophic for those involved in safe-guarding public health, because the interdepartmental politics, lack of openness and flexibility and the need to respond to market forces makes such creaking structures less able than smaller, contained groups of like-minded, intuitively-attuned individuals to provide the adaptability and high responsiveness required to deal with existing and emerging crises, such that HIV and crystal meth represent. Thus AID$ Inc.'s unhelpful
perception that resources like LIFE OR METH represent a subversive threat to the status quo.

In other words, the clarity and urgency that defines our style, and our synchronistic ability to get essential, compassion-led responses and campaigns into the public eye quickly, efficiently and on miniscule budgets, exposes their failings and limitations all too clearly, laying bare their lumbering ineffectualness, ineptitude and inertia for all to see. In fact, the more I wised up to the dilatory, blinkered ways in which many of these larger agencies operate - in particular the rigid, closed mindsets and irrational PC belief systems that run counter to emphasising the need to protect their communities' health and wellbeing above all else - the more it became abundantly clear that, like the infamous emperor himself, AID$ Inc. is wearing no clothes.

Gay-run AIDS organisations that set out to raise awareness around sexual health in the 1980s did so with one clear vision in mind: a zero HIV transmission rate and, ultimately, eradication of the virus. 

Groups like UFA and Stop AIDS were set up and continue to be run by passionately committed and motivated people, many of whom volunteer their time. They survive largely on community donations yet unswervingly strive towards their goals regardless, conscious of the fact that were they to succeed in their mission then they would disband and move on to new challenges. They operate on the basis that their task is potentially finite and so do all they can to educate their communities how best to protect and respect their health, and they do so with compassion, integrity, speed and efficiency. And if that involves using a few shock methods to effectively convey and ram their messages home in order to reach out to the vulnerable and those at most risk, then so be it.

Others that set out with compassionate objectives became distracted along the way. Seduced by the power and prestige acquired through running cash-rich public sector edifices, not least those fashionably lauded by A-list celebrities, they allowed self-promotion and fundraising to move to the core of their activities. Their mission corrupted and integrity eroded, AID$ Inc.'s funding net quickly widened to embrace outsiders with vested interests such as government health departments and Big Pharma, while more and more of their income was pumped into executive wages and perks at the expense of vital health initiatives and prevention campaigns. Morphing from compassionate responders into self-serving entities, the aims and goals of the new army of "AIDS careerists" - mostly comprising media-trained academics with little formal training in healthcare -became blurred and submerged beneath the weight of bureaucratised procedures that sought to expand, sustain and dominate at all costs...
[See "Normalising" HIV]

 

[QUANGO (Quasi-NGO): A non-governmental organisation/semi-public advisory and administrative body that is financed and supported by the government and having most of its members appointed by the government]

AID$ Inc.'s frenetic fundraising activities - which have variously been described as "grasping" and "begging" - yield it by far the largest slice of the funding pie compared to smaller, tight-knit operations like Stop AIDS and UFA, who remain committed to their missions and focused on keeping their core message alive, devoid of self-interest, greed or external influence. Indeed, the need to do so can be so all-consuming that the time and energy devoted to raising funds often features some way down their list of priorities, hence their constant struggle just to survive. 

The alternative? To prostitute themselves to the culture of dependency on taxpayers' cash that saw AID$ Inc. long ago wave goodbye to its independence and climb into bed with outside interests to become academical adjuncts of government (quangos), jumping and kow towing to its excessive dictates and demands that have long seen the aggressive, compassion-led campaigns that once stemmed the spread of HIV and correlated health risks superseded by the creeping "left-is-right/ black-is-white/2+2=5" pervasiveness of political correctness; a destructive form of mental programing that has been systematically used to legitimise and normalise the HIV virus, thereby eroding and decimating the collective health of men who have sex with men (MSM) throughout the West and sending HIV transmission rates soaring.

"GMHC has never conducted any serious psychosocial research to find out how to design HIV prevention campaigns properly. Right now no one at GMHC knows what an effective HIV prevention campaign for gay men looks like. One of the reasons is that the money it takes from the federal government comes with restrictions that make it impossible to use it effectively. So instead our tax money and our donations are spent on what is safe, visible, and likely to bring in more donations, rather than what is efficacious."
~ Andrew Miller [Gay City News]

"Most [US] HIV prevention campaigns targeted at meth users are ridiculously shallow. The government has actively participated in the deaths of gay men by prohibiting funding from being used to disseminate the graphic information needed to make informed decisions."
~ Patrick Moore [The Village Voice]

"Charities have donors with pre-conceived notions of who must be kept sweet. Government research money is now heavily under political influence; it would be a brave academic hoping for future grants who used government funds to conclude the latest Downing St.-trumpeted health service initiative was garbage."
~ The Cochrane Collaboration

"Britain is the birthplace of many renowned charities. In the past few years, many of these organisations have undergone a curious transformation. They have begun to receive much of their income from the State rather than from individual donors. And they've given up important aspects of their work and concentrated instead on publicity and propaganda... The public has, for the most part, not yet noticed these changes and continued to give generously to charity appeals. But awareness is growing and the charities should realise that, if they abandon their traditional role, they may also weaken the respect in which they are held, and face a long-term loss in contributions that will end by making them wholly dependent on the government."
~ The Mail on Sunday [Editorial, February 2007]

A pattern of compliance to external directives that ultimately adversely impact on gay men's health is blatantly evident within AID$ Inc. UK, shedding light on its inability and thinly-veiled reluctance to act in the best interests of those it professes to serve.

"Common Purpose: Although it has 80,000 trainees in 36 UK cities, 30,000 graduate members and enormous power, Common Purpose (CP) is largely unknown to the general public. It recruits and trains its leaders to work beyond authority, to abuse their posts and serve CP instead of their own departments, which they then undermine. Its members control the NHS, where it wastes £60bn, much of it going into private pockets, and controls most of Britain's 8,500 quangos which spend £167bn annually according to the Cabinet Office. Most of that is waste... CP is identifying leaders in all levels of our government to assume power when our nation is replaced by the European Union, in what they call “the post democratic era.�?They are learning to rule without democracy"...
~ Brian Gerrish  [Common Purpose Exposed]

"Quangos have proved the perfect vehicle for transforming the social fabric of Britain into a politically correct nanny state while avoiding the need for a democratic mandate for change."
~ Leo McKinstry [The Daily Mail, June 20, 2007]

In Britain, the HIV sector's bureaucratically-inflicted decline has taken root thanks to its accountability to shadowy management consultants/"commissioners" within the state-owned NHS. Like the gay men's health sector, the UK's once world-renowned public health service has seen its once high standards systematically eroded from within since New Labour acquired power in 1997, despite having had £269.2 billion of taxpayer pounds lavished on it. For example, while the quota of available beds has declined annually, the number of deaths from hospital-acquired infections is now over 50 times higher than in some European countries.

This publicly unaccountable, self-selecting body of consultants, which costs the NHS around £600 million annually and has the power to make major decisions that affect society, announced in December 2006 that the entire approach of agencies like THT and GMFA would be rethought due to their "failure" to impede record rates of HIV among MSM (for the third year running over 2,600 were diagnosed HIV+ in the UK in 2007 - the highest rate on record); a decision effectively imposed on an HIV sector that has allowed itself to become a government arm, responsive to its misguided and often damaging dictates and directives in order to secure additional funding. "We [have] little evidence as to the effectiveness of current HIV prevention programs," the commissioning body said when setting out its proposal to restructure the way AID$ Inc. UK tackles HIV prevention.

In November 2007, the London Gay Men's HIV Prevention Partnership (LGMHPP) - a central fund contributed to by London's NHS Trusts and administered by NHS commissioners - confirmed it would be slashing the budget for information resources such as booklets and advertising campaigns in gay media by 36% and axing a swath of sexual health counseling in favour of "Persuasive Interpersonal Interaction" (i.e. face-to-face interviews with gay men conducted by hundreds of volunteers converging on bars and clubs, probing and snooping into every area of their sex lives on the pretext of "disseminating safe sex advice based on each individual's needs.")

Dubbed "quality interaction" by the propagates of this intrusive new approach, every intimate detail gathered would then be stored on a cross-accessible central database, adding to the UK government's growing raft of sinister Big Brother measures that include 4.2 million CCTV cameras erected in towns and cities across Britain (one for every 14 citizens), a national biometric ID card, the proposed microchipping of criminals, and a multitude of databases ranging from a DNA archive to one that stores school children's fingerprints.

“Gay people are often justifiably concerned that details about their sexuality are being collected by the state and could potentially be misused by public officials in the future, for reasons completely unrelated to crime prevention or prosecution. We need laws designed to make us safer, not laws that control and monitor every aspect of our lives, and which hand over more power to a Big Brother state.�?BR>~ Dominic Grieve [UK Shadow Home Secretary]

"Hardly a day goes by without a Minister calling for yet another vast database or yet more surveillance powers. What is wrong with Britain? Why are we sleepwalking our way into a surveillance society? This government's relentless urge to snoop, record and file every detail of our lives is putting our very democracy in danger."
~ Dr. Gus Hosein [The London School of Economics]

Essentially, the NHS commissioning body was proposing such measures to resolve the UK HIV sector's abject failure to stem the decline in the gay community's sexual health - a decline that AID$ Inc. UK allowed the NHS to conspire in and fuel by taking its cash in return for following its politically correct dictates and directives!

The UK HIV sector admitted as much when one of its own health workers told Gay Times in July 2007: "Most of the gay agencies involved are furious, especially as the report dismisses most of the work they've been doing to NHS specifications for the past six years."

GMFA swiftly launched a desperate damage limitation offensive in the gay press, claiming that the HIV infection rate is at record levels only because more MSM are coming forward to be tested, and that rates have in fact remained steady over the years. "The uptake of HIV testing in recent years highlights the recent success of health promotion in reducing the number of gay men with undiagnosed HIV," said GMFA head Matthew Hodson - who also, incidentally, opposes a ban on bareback videos on the basis that “I don’t like the thought of censorship, particularly that which discriminates against gay men�?- contradicting clearcut evidence that shows that HIV is on the increase due to more UK MSM than ever having unsafe sex, with up to 9000 estimated to be unaware that they carry the virus because they are not coming forward to be tested, particularly in the wake of prosecutions against those who recklessly or wilfully infect others.

Discrediting Hodson's fallacy that more gay men than ever are coming forward to be tested, 2007's Sigma Gay Men's Sex Survey reported that the proportion remains unchanged since 1997, while Will Nutland, The Terrence Higgins Trust's ubiquitous press spokesman (officially known as Head of Health Promotion), told the London listings magazine Out in December 2007: "HIV statistics gauged by ongoing surveys are in fact likely to be an underestimation, since around one in four gay men with HIV haven't had the infection diagnosed." 

In December 2006, a Pink Paper reader wrote that GMFA can't not be aware of the true picture because its collection buckets were a World AIDS Day fixture at Central Station, one of a growing number of hardcore sex-on-premises venues in London where condoms are routinely shunned, barebacking is the encouraged norm and used needles and syringes are casually discarded. One such venue even had to remind all its members in an email that the act of deffacation, particularly in the manager's office, was against club rules.

"GMFA are not the sex police," parroted PC disciple Hodson, prompting a contributor to the Pink Paper's bulletin board to liken the charity's tact to that of a cancer charity begging for money in a hospital chemotherapy ward. GMFA's effective ruling body, The Terrence Higgins Trust, has since awarded a number of underground sex-on-premises venues that adopt a "code of good practice" its official 'Play Zone' seal of approval; an unenforceable code that will be policed just twice a year and risks driving those in search of unsanitised, unregulated sex even further underground to non-Play Zone venues while acting as a lure to young men who would not otherwise consider entering such environments. [See Dirty Little Secret]

"Those practicing unsafe sex need reminding that HIV is one of many STIs that HIV-seroconcordant couples may be discordant for...that can manifest more virulently in HIV+ gay men, accelerate HIV's progress, make HIV more infectious and play a role in such disorders as liver failure or cervical/rectal cancer. The take-home message simply has to be that super-
infections may well occur and are occurring in sex clubs and backrooms throughout the UK today."
~ Philip Rochester [UK.Gay.Com discussion board]

"GMFA has the bare-faced cheek to collect money at sex-on-premises establishments where condoms are shunned, and then uses that money to fund 'Arse Classes', 'Bondage For Beginners' and 'How-To-Get-That-Stud-Out-of-His-Towel-And-Into-The-Sauna' courses on the basis that they are empowering gay men to get the sex they want. What twisted logic!"
~ Paul Clifton [Disco Damaged]

"The messages [most cruise clubs] are sending out are that diseases like HIV and hep C are no big deal, and that gay men don't have any respect for themselves."
~ Spike [London club promoter]

Heavy petitioning in the gay press resulted in the HIV prevention budget being saved, but not without a notable casualty. In March 2008, it was announced that GMFA's contract to supply London's HIV prevention campaigns wouldn’t be renewed, thereby marginalising the charity and its activities and ending a succession of PC ads that have sought to sexualise, fetishise, romanticise, trivialise and, ultimately, legitimise the HIV virus. Instead, the London Sexual Health Commissioning Group, which apportions HIV prevention funding, awarded the three-year contract to THT, the UK's largest provider of HIV services.

 

 

 

 

 

"I can see in the gay community, just from my own observations and from talking to people, that the issue of HIV and AIDS has kind of been a little shelved or has changed... It seems to me that after that wave of 'we can get drugs, we can get treatment', there's almost a sense of a lack of emergency again... I'm not saying this because I'm a prude. I'm just saying 'oh my God'... I went to quite a few gay events [in the US] and I was talking to my friends, who are a bit older, and they were saying they were really freaked out by what people were doing in their 20s; they're, like, virus chasing... I think that the danger is that the alarm bell is left silent."
~ Annie Lennox [The Pink Paper, 17 April, 2008]

Born of a response to the siren call to contain and curtail the spread of HIV, the real fight against AIDS ended in the mid-1990s. Since then AID$ Inc. has systematically immersed itself in managing and commodifying the virus while paying scant lip service to preventing the spread of HIV and keeping the safe sex message alive.

"Many organisations...chose to tone down or scale back their prevention outreach for gay men, just at a time when infection rates for gay and bisexual men - particularly young men - began to climb again after posting declines in the 1990s."
~ Bob Adams [The Advocate]

By the early/mid-1990s, the compassion-led advocacy of many AIDS organisations in the West - not least the encouraging of safe, mutually-respecting behaviours combined with effective, hardhitting safe sex campaigning - had succeeded in substantially reducing HIV transmissions to the extent that their task was becoming minimalised. To survive and expand, many larger organisations abandoned their enshrined principles and objectives and "sold their souls" to outside interests, and a process of bureaucratisation - or "quangofication" - ensued that, ultimately, would see a devastating price paid by those whose health they were tasked to protect.

The start of today's upward trajectory in HIV transmissions can be pinpointed precisely; to the emergence of combination therapies in 1995/6 when infection rates were at their lowest level since the start of the epidemic.

Some AIDS agencies publicly hailed HAART - highly active antiretroviral therapy - as a miracle panacea, providing the pretext for a seismic shift in their priorities and emphasis away from effective HIV prevention campaigning towards HIV management; one that would enforce a renewed dependency for a sector dispensing vital services and life-saving treatments while justifying their demands for ever greater injections of cash to support their reconstructed, market-driven frameworks. Today, The Terrence Higgins Trust in London receives millions of pounds annually to provide HIV services from primary care trusts, local health boards and other central government health bodies. The equation is simple: the more HIVers it provides for, the more central funding it receives.

The commodification of HIV saw extraordinary levels of obfuscation, manipulation, intimidation and control freakery creep into AID$ Inc.'s practices, and public relations experts - "spin doctors" - appointed as "health experts" to justify and deftly explain away the scaling back or abandonment of established, proven structures and procedures in favour of brutally efficient, market-responsive systems that would ultimately maximise the sector's new, HIV services-oriented framework, and in ways which raised few eyebrows and prompted no questions from a compliant, ad revenue-hungry gay media. [See Smoke and Mirrors]

The politically correct strategy of reducing HIV stigma via the avoidance of offending and/or upsetting the feelings of HIVers was the pretext by which AID$ Inc. justified diluting the impact of established and proven graphic HIV prevention campaigns.

"95% of HIV+ people would not care if an advert implied it's dumb to fuck without a condom, or that saggy arses and diarrhoea stink and will ruin your lovely gay image - whatever it takes to deter someone going through what they went through!"
~ Ricky Dyer [HIV+ journalist]

Such campaigns were watered down and their impact diminished in ways which many interpreted as a green light to dispense with precautions altogether and continue to do to this day, while the line dividing HIV- and HIV+ blurred as safe sex campaigns stopped attacking the virus and instead adopted a universal "play safe/use condoms" approach aimed at all MSM simultaneously rather than being targetted specific to  HIV-status. These gave rise to oblique, confusing "one-
size-fits-all" messages that prevail to this day. Devoid of the immediacy, consistency, accessibility and effectiveness of the aggressive, to-the-point campaigns they superceded, they have spectacularly failed to address the educational needs of the (still) negative majority, as soaring HIV rates testify.

"Our community used to be at war with HIV, back when graphic campaigns worked, but truth is often the first casualty in war. Subsequent campaigns progressively failed to hit the message home why HIV must continue to be avoided at all costs. Instead they sexualised, romanticised, fetishised and ultimately normalised the virus to the extent where "bug chasing", bareback films and high-risk sex venues are tolerated and even endorsed. When will the dangerous PC rationalising and commodification of HIV cease and the compassionate task of preventing this disease spreading even further begin?"
- Ben [Pink Paper letters]

"20 years ago the unequivocal message was 'AIDS means death - don't put yourself at risk'. How that message has changed since then. One recent [UK] sexual health campaign encouraged us to pull out 'like a porn star' rather than cum inside. There was no 'don't do bareback' message at all."
~ Paul Heeley [The Pink Paper]

"It's not rocket science to see that current efforts to prevent the spread of HIV are failing. The time is now ripe for a return to the kind of hardhitting grassroots education campaigns that worked so effectively in the 1980s. This is an unfashionable idea, but what is the alternative? The status quo is simply not working."
~ Paul Steinberg [Boyz]
 
Indeed, so zealous has AID$ Inc. been at legitimising HIV that “reverse stigmatisation�?has become common place, resulting in a blase social toleration of bareback videos, the high-profile endorsement of high-risk sex-on-premises venues where Class A drug use is rife, and the rise of the term “bug chasing�? whereby some HIV- men - particularly those marginalised in AIDS-ravaged gay ghettoes - deliberately acquire the virus in order to conform to what they perceive as being the social norm.

"AIDS prevention messages had not weighed the needs and experiences of HIV- men specifically, choosing instead to broadcast a generic "play safe" theme tailored to avoid offending men who were HIV+. Other language in the AIDS liturgy seemed to dangerously minimise the impact of HIV, and failed to state plainly that being HIV- is better than being HIV+."
~ Duncan Osborne [Author, Suicide Tuesday]

In ensuring their long-term survival by exerting their dominance and responding to the effects of HIV and providing services to HIVers, AID$ Inc. globally devoted less and less energy and resources to addressing the causes.

Consequently, the irrational PC belief systems by which they operate have spawned a generation of uninformed, docile and consequently HIV-infected MSM dependent on its services and Big Pharma's life-prolonging - albeit toxic and potentially fatal - combination therapies. In conjunction with other factors, these medications can cause cancer, lung, liver and heart disease, heart attacks and, contrary to the deceptively optimistic outlook fanfared by AID$ Inc. - not least their rebranding of HIV/AIDS as a "manageable" disease like diabetes - may keep the average 21-year-old newly-diagnosed with HIV alive for just 24.2 years. It is a sobering fact that around 200 gay men still die from AIDS complications in the UK each year. In 2006, 2,076 New Yorkers died from the disease, and AIDS remains the third leading cause of death in men under 65, exceeded only by heart disease and cancer.

“You may have heard somewhere that HIV is now a ‘chronic�?condition. I think what our HIV doctors mean is that it’s manageable: in a similar way to asthma or diabetes. So there you go, HIV is now ‘manageable�? just like long hair after using a good conditioner.�?BR>~ Gordon Mundie [THT Outreach Worker]

"GMFA tells gay men 'If you start HIV treatment early enough you can live to be 100', which is a downright negligent and inaccurate representation. Nothing about the nausea or diarrhoea, body-changing deformaties, liver and kidney damage, the draining lethargy or a life on low state handouts because of the inability to keep a good job through HIV drug failures and side-effects or their overall highly toxic nature."
Jimmy Y [UK.Gay.Com discussion boards]

"We have the facts and yet we are still missing the message. Don't buy into the myth that HIV is like diabetes. There is nothing manageable when dealing with an uncertain future, side effects from medication and, to top it all off, rejection based purely on your positive status. An HIV diagnosis can rip through your core and make you question everything."
~ Clint Walters [Founder of Health Initiatives]

"[HIV] is manageable, but to relegate it as another chronic condition makes many gay men feel that it is less of a threat... The main questions concerning HIV are: how would you view having another chronic disease, and would you want to be diabetic if you had the choice? Certainly no one should want to be infected, especially when it can be prevented."
~ Frank Spinelli, MD [The Advocate Guide to Gay Men's Health and Wellness, Ayson Books]

"It is true that the treatment has improved, but anyone who thinks that having the virus is nothing more than an inconvenience is a complete idiot. Taking all the pills is unpleasant, but aside from that everything stops working as it should. I have constant diarrhoea one week followed by constipation the next, I’ve lost four stone in weight and can’t sleep."
~ Anon [Pink News]

By reconstructing HIV in this way - in the process legitimising and even glamorising the HIV virus that can still lead to full-blown AIDS, and which is still killing 200 men each year in the UK alone - the declining effectiveness of safe sex campaigning became inversely proportional to the burgeoning demand for AID$ Inc.'s portfolio of HIV services, which, perversely and macabrely, require a steady flow of MSM to be seroconverting in order to be lucrative and cost-effective. In London, where the AIDS sector has presided over a rapid decline in the overall sexual health of MSM since 1996, HIV infection rates continue to spiral alongside:

�?nbsp;Glossy, dumbed-down HIV brochures packaged and presented in ways which, to the uninformed and uninitiated, can appear to glorify the virus and equate acquisition with gaining entry into an exclusive members' club;

�?nbsp;"Have-the-sex-you-want" courses ranging from "Bondage for Beginners" to "Sauna Cruising Tips" and "Arse Classes" advertised in scene listings magazines aimed at under 25-year-old club kids, 75% of whom no longer consider HIV to be a major health risk, according to a recent survey;

�?nbsp;Saturation advertising campaigns for PEP that lull some into a false sense of invincibility with their reputation as an (unproven) "quick fix"/morning after pill, particularly among crystal meth users.

"Younger gay males think if they get [HIV] it won't be so bad, and they're just plain wrong. The pills are horrifying and can cause heart attacks, liver failure and a host of other problems, but how would they know? In the gay community the face of AIDS is healthy, active, geared to go...hell, damned sexy in some cases!"
~ Here Magazine

Several years ago, Spectator journalist Leo McKinstry infiltrated a GMFA sex course and exposed the group for squandering funds intended for HIV prevention. This resulted in The Charity Commission censuring GMFA, which narrowly escape closure. The validity of such courses to empower MSM to "get the sex you want" wasn't in question. That they were being run by a charity funded to address major issues around sexual health and HIV was. Today, GMFA gets around such technicalities by calling itself, somewhat questionably, "The Gay Men's Health Charity"; a tacit admission that it is no longer in the business of "Fighting AIDS".

"The HIV community is very attractive. We have a glossy magazine full of gentle messages of love, care and support for our condition with lovely pictures of attractive people in drug company ads holding hands with a 'spirit of love' or 'we understand' message. The THT logo of two hearts entwined tells gay men to come be part of the 'love in' that is HIV/AIDS."
~ Anon [UK.Gay.Com message board]

Such approaches demonstrably foster a climate that subliminally encourages the naive, gullible and weak-willed to "bug chase", while instilling in a significant core minority of HIVers the right to have unsafe sex with partners they know to be negative (i.e. "gift givers"/"breeders"). 

A climate in which:

�?nbsp;HIV treatments - not prevention - are routinely hailed as the solution [See "HIV is no Picnic"];

�?nbsp;Gaydar features an option for safer sex on its members' profiles as something that "needs discussion" as opposed to a non-negotiable plank; 

�?nbsp;Three twinks catch HIV on the set of one bareback film; an industry that is catering to a growing demand fuelled by an HIV sector that refuses to stigmatise or speak out against so-called forms of "entertainment";

�?Sex clubs that follow "codes of good conduct" are endorsed by leading HIV charities, serving to legitimise unsafe sexual, sometimes extreme behaviours which continue in these venues regardless;

�?Scarce HIV resources are channelled into a web site that provides titilating, step-by-step instructions on dangerous, degrading and disempowering sex acts ranging from barebacking and scat to felching and asphyxiation;

�?nbsp;HIV prevention ads advise you to “Pull out like porn stars!�?before you cum where once condoms were advocated at all times and without question; to “Get it on�?and other suggestive messages with implied double-meanings that seemingly take their cue from an NLP handbook; or, if you already have an STI, to “Get it checked. Get back out there!�?instead of pausing to consider how your sexual behaviour might need to be addressed to prevent you picking up an STI in future (the latter relaunched by THT in mid-2008, around the time its latest chargeable services �?STI testing kits by post and face-to-face counselling �?were being marketed in the gay press...

"HIV+ gay men now demand the right to have unprotected sex with anyone of their choosing without disclosure of their own status to their partners. In this these men are supported by major UK AIDS and gay men’s health charities, who maintain that it is not the responsibility of an HIV+ man to take control of safer sexual practices, thereby ensuring future service users for their own charities. After all, where would these agencies be if HIV was stopped in its tracks by all HIV+ gay men insisting on safer sex each time?"
~ Jasper Reynard [Chairman, GMAF]

That the HIV "charity" sector more actively supports the rights of HIVers than those of negative men is borne out by their insistence that it is not the responsibility of positive men to disclose their status if engaging in unprotected sex. Not surprisingly, AID$ Inc. has also proven to be the most outspoken critic of the recent spate of criminal convictions of HIVers who wittingly or carelessly pass the virus on to others, even dispensing tips to those wanting to avoid prosecution such as "Don't keep a diary listing your sexual exploits".

According to the last UK Gay Men's Sex Survey, 31% of the respondents whose last HIV test was negative had unprotected anal sex with someone whose HIV status they did not know, and 3.5% of negative MSM had unsafe sex with someone whose status they knew to be HIV+, while 42% of positive respondents had unprotected anal sex with someone whose HIV status they did not know, and 21% had unprotected sex with someone who had told them that their last test was negative. Furthermore, a 2008 study by the UK Medical Research Council, which questioned 3,500 gay men, reported that a third of respondents who knew they are HIV-positive are still having unsafe sex, and were statistically more likely to have unprotected sex than those who did not know their status.

"These are truly horrific figures, but it is the PCGM (political correctness gone mad) AIDS lobby who insist that [HIVers] are innocent parties and relentlessly defend them, and who maintain that it is negative
men who should be taking the lead where safe sex is concerned. Yet who is it holding the gun?"
~ Seb C [UK.Gay.Com boards]

”People can shout as loudly as they like that they only bareback with other HIV+ guys but the figures, and my experience, tell another story. As a community we need to ditch the ‘barebacking�?debate and speak with one voice on prevention to tackle these alarming figures. It is time to drop the softly-softly approach and get tough... Today, there is a new generation of young gay men playing HIV Russian roulette.�?BR>~ Philip Rochester [UK.Gay.Com discussion board]

"Public health officials and AIDS advocates say many gay men have adopted a laissez-faire attitude about safer sex, and they cite as examples the continued popularity of crystal meth, a rise in barebacking, and widespread apathy in which HIV is seen more as a nuisance than a life-threatening disease."
~ Andrew Jacobs [HIV Plus]

"'I challenge you to go into a UK gay bar, pick up any HIV prevention leaflet, and find a clear statement why you shouldn't catch HIV,' says Yusef Azad, senior policy officer with the National Aids Trust. And Azad is not the only one who thinks we've got it wrong."
~ Gus Cairns [Positive Nation]

"Placing small booklets in selected venues does not amount to a proactive public awareness campaign."
~ Shayne Chester [CAAMA]

When, in 1999, UK AIDS charities were told that American MSM were responding to the complacency of their AIDS agencies' wishy washy safe sex messages and returning, en masse, to unsafe sex practices in the wake of the popped corks and premature sighs of relief that greeted combination therapies, and that hard-hitting campaigns were again needed to reinforce the message to UK MSM that AIDS remained a chronic and incurable killer disease, they dismissed the warning out of hand. It clearly did not make good economic sense for them to do otherwise: today, calls by distressed, newly-seroconverted MSM to most gay organisations and helplines in the UK are automatically referred to The Terrence Higgins Trust.

In the tax year 2005/6, The Terrence Higgins Trust announced in its annual Trustees Report a cash haul of £12,842,000. In 2006/7, a year that saw a further record rise in HIV transmissions, this had risen to a staggering £13,452,000... [Click on THT PDF link, left]

"What figures are [THT] giving the government to secure future funding? Lets say they are predicting a further 6000 gay men next year, what is the rate of increase for the year after? That's how it works. The number of gay men becoming HIV+ is their business plan."
~ Thomas [UK.Gay.Com discussion board]

In a shameless bid to become the Wal*Mart/ Tesco of UK HIV service providers, THT now provides to over 50,000 HIVers of all sexualities a year.

It has achieved this "feat" by creating a virtual monopoly, swallowing up more than 20 smaller HIV charities across the UK since 1999 like ruthless private equity asset-strippers, "streamlining" each acquisition with extreme costcutting procedures that trim vital services to the bone or simply axes them altogether. A monopolistic precedent that THT's seemingly immortal chief suit, Nick Partridge, nevertheless regards as "an exciting opportunity to make a real impact for the UK as a whole". An exciting opportunity for who, exactly, as THT predatorily hovers over the longest-established and respected AIDS charity, Crusaid?

"How did [THT] consult with service users, the very people for whose benefit we exist? Were the views of the stakeholders and funders taken into account? THT...plans for a pale shadow of existing structures."
~ Roy Kilpatrick [Chair of HIV Scotland on THT's latest merger]

"There are so many people in need and so little in the way of services all over the UK. I've been horrified by all this, and am getting sick and tired of what I believe is jobs for the boys and dishonesty within the HIV sector. Where is the money going? I know I'm going to piss some people off, but Positive Nation is going to start exposing organisations who are taking advantage of HIV people and those who do not do what they are being paid to do with our taxes and charitable donations."
~ Ian Thomas [Publisher, Positive Nation]

THT has also drastically cut back vital counseling services to HIVers citing lack of funds. In May 2006 - the month it moved into lavish new multi-million pound premises in central London - the charity quietly announced the closure of its Specialist Advice Centre, which provided vital, high-level legal casework for dozens of HIV+ individuals, absurdly citing "budgetary restraints" and "increasing financial pressures". The centre’s team of solicitors, who often gave their time voluntarily and free of charge, stood up for the rights of HIVers who might otherwise have been unable to access legal representation over many years, winning numerous cases for those undergoing problems like immigration, housing, welfare benefits and social care.

"If the trend for mainstreaming our HIV services continues, I imagine we'll find ourselves in care settings which have all manner of impressive sounding equality policies displayed on the wall but fail to deliver in concrete ways that actually allow us the freedom to be who we are without fear of reprisal."
~ Russell Fleet [Positive Nation]

By June 2006, there were 36,920 gay and bisexual men living with HIV in the UK. THT's service user targets are obligingly made up by vast numbers of African immigrants and asylum seekers who make up nearly all of the UK's heterosexual HIV+ population, who are referred to the charity by the NHS and often prioritised.

"Half of the UK AIDS spend is on African asylum seekers and refugees... UK AIDS agencies...know that the cash cow in the AIDS industry is African and not indigenous gay men. It is high time we had a robust public debate about how our AIDS funds are spent and distributed, before indigenous HIV+ gay men lose even the few crumbs they currently are able to have."
~ Thomas Frank [Pink Paper]

THT's morphing from a gay men's HIV prevention charity into a bureacratised, market-driven HIV services provider, its complacency around HIV prevention and failure to educate effectively about correlated and causative health risks, such that crystal meth represents, is at complete odds with its long-stated prime objective spelled out, until recently, in its Mission Statement:

"To reduce the spread of HIV and STIs and promote good sexual health."

Since this article was posted, that wording has been mysteriously changed to read "To encourage people to value their sexual health, thereby minimising the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and reducing unintended pregnancies," effectively altering THT's mandate from preventers of the spread of HIV to mere encouragers of risk minimisation while implicitly emphasising that while it was set up as a charity for gay men it now serves all HIVers irrespectively, thereby boosting further demand for its government-funded services. In this context, it is easy to surmise how AID$ Inc. have created a problem - their failure to prevent soaring rates of HIV infection - in order to facilitate a self-serving solution while also significantly boosting the profits of Big Pharma.

"The AIDS charities nowadays seem more concerned with marketing their own services for HIV+ men and there aren't any campaigns dealing with the rise in barebacking, safer sex promotion or meth use to protect negative men."
~ David [Manchester scene-goer]

"No Condoms. No sex. Period. This simple mantra will stop HIV in its tracks, despite the best attempts of certain HIV and gay men’s health advisors to overcomplicate this for their own ends or oppose this in order to ensure future service-users."
~ Cass Mann [Positively Healthy]

The AIDS drug industry is now worth $7.1 billion
a year, and is set to grow by at least 5% a year for the next 10 years to be worth $10.6bn by 2015. Industry market researcher Datamonitor says those "best poised to reap dividends" will have invested in researching and developing drugs with new modes of action...

"While the advertisements promise health, the very market place of this investment industry is the existence and expansion of diseases. Prevention, root cause treatment and eradication of diseases threaten the pharmaceutical 'investment business with disease' and are therefore fought... The very industry that claims the monopoly on global health care is itself the biggest obstacle for the people of the world to enjoy a healthy life.... Accordingly, 80% of the pharmaceutical drugs currently on the market have no proven efficacy but merely cover symptoms. [Therefore] today’s most common diseases - including cardiovascular disease, cancer [and] AIDS - are not contained but continue to spread, despite the fact that effective, non-patentable alternatives [i.e. from nature] are available."
~ Dr. Matthias Rath, M.D.

Figures from the Centre for Responsive Politics, Campaign Finance Institute and Centre for Public Integrity reveal that $158 million was spent by drug companies to lobby the US federal government alone in 2004, $17 million was given in campaign donations (67% to Republicans), and $7.3 million was spent on political party conventions (64% going to the Republicans). $1m was given to the presidential campagn of George Bush and $1.5m to John Kerry. Big Parma has around 1,300 lobbyists in Washington - more than two for every member of Congress...

"You can hardly swing a cat in that town without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist."
~ Chuck Grassley [Senate Finance Committee Chairman]

It is a grim, if sobering, fact that Big Pharma makes infinitely more money drugging the infected and treating the symptoms of certain diseases than it ever would curing said diseases. It is an equally sobering fact that, 25+ years into an epidemic that should long before now have been contained and curtailed, three times as many UK MSM are seroconverting than in 1996 - the year HIV medications started being prescribed. Yet this appalling tally is the same worldwide wherever bureaucratised (i.e. corruptible) HIV agencies have allowed themselves to become mere public relations conduits that place the interests of outside bodies like Big Pharma and central government above those of the communities they profess to serve.

"The main beneficiaries of this quarter century-long AIDS catastrophe have been pharmaceutical companies which, despite the odd gesture, continue to manoeuvre to protect patents and profits at the expense of the poor."
~ Peter Gill [Body Count: How they turned AIDS into a Catastrophe]

Big Pharma reaps enormous dividends from AID$ Inc.'s zealous emphasis on, and promotion of, the drugs on which HIVers become dependent for life - costing $618,900 per newly-diagnosed 21-year-old HIV patient over an estimated average 24.2 year lifetime on meds- and its targeting the effects of unsafe sex with unproven pharmaceutical drugs like PEP while paying lip service to educating effectively about the causes; a collusion that drains the public purse and comes at a huge price to society.

"The idea that HIV bureaucrats and modern medicine promoters are living in a different reality is not far from the truth. In my view, HIV sector decision makers have no connection with reality. They're simply operating on a system of false beliefs and circular reasoning that justifies their efforts to protect Big Pharma profits by exploiting, misleading and directly harming the public."
~ Paul Clifton [UK.Gay.Com boards]

"The medications available are hailed as the answer to everyone's prayers where HIV is concerned, until you realise that their funding comes from cash-starved NHS trusts [in the UK], desperate to balance the books somehow while, in London, faceless suits are deciding which drugs can be used to treat HIV based solely on the cost of the treatment."
~ Plus-v-e Magazine

"Most [HIVers in the UK] are experiencing increased levels of deprivation... There's a loss to the economy of this group's productivity. There's an anecdotal figure for the cost of providing treatment to the NHS, which I've been advised not to reproduce here. Suffice to say, it's huge. Reducing the number of people living with HIV in the long-term will reduce the bill of HIV treatment, lost man-hours to the economy and reduce social welfare benefits being claimed by this group. This isn't rocket science."
~ Robin Brady [Chief Executive, Crusaid]

"The drug companies, the AIDS scientists, the World Health Organisation...all have gained [from HIV] except for HIV/AIDS patients and their loved ones, and the taxpayer. Some drug companies have become very rich with happy stock-holders. AIDS is a billion dollar business, and the big AIDS research money [in the US] is handed out exclusively by the Pentagon; another reason to suspect a tie of AIDS to military biological warfare research."
~ Alan Cantwell, MD [Aries Rising Press]

Therein lies the rub: because there's no financial incentive or sustainability in stemming the spread of HIV, the virus itself has become the market-driven HIV sector's lifeblood, with HIV- men these days eyed more as potential, lucrative service users; human fodder instead of human beings in need of effective, plain-speaking HIV prevention campaigns and initiatives around correlated and causative health risks.

"AIDS activist Michael Cottrell asked an extremely pertinent question of the Chairman of UK Coalition
concerning pharmaceutical company advertising in its publication Positive Nation: why did these companies not equally advertise and promote condom usage in the aggressive way they market their antiretrovirals?"
~ Cass Mann [Positively Healthy]

"My hope was one of the AIDS organisations would take the issue up and ask drug companies to assist us in stopping the spread of HIV. Instead they are hell bent on securing for the drug companies ever increasing profits. So certain is the trend in HIV infection in gay men with [AID$ Inc.] exercising absolute power over the AIDS and gay communities and gay press, one could easily write to the Financial Times and recommend pharmaceuticals as a sure fire share tip."
~ Michael Cottrell [UK.Gay.Com discussion board]

And just as there's no long-term profit or sustainability in curing society's ills as it dispenses life-prolonging treatments in the West - propelled by dishonest advertisements that portray users of HIV antiretrovirals as impossibly blemish-free superbeings - while steadfastly resisting calls for cheaper, generic versions to be made available to impoverished, under-developed nations (scandals that AID$ Inc.'s silence is complicit in aiding), HIV has become a golden egg for Big Pharma on a par with the diabetes and cancer industries.  

AIDS antiretrovirals are to Big Pharma what chemotherapy is to cancer; highly toxic treatments which sustain the patient in his/her condition while reaping enormous profits for their makers, who continue to transparently lament "no cure in sight". [See The Disease Industry]

"I have long thought that the medical establishment... feels it is best served by keeping people sick rather than healing them. Look at diabetes, as a cynic. What a wonderful disease! A diabetic will live a fully normal life, just spending thousands of dollars a year in doctor's visits and medications, eventually succumbing to the disease, but not until spending tens of thousands of dollars to combat the symptoms."
~ Steve Runyan [Kombucha answers]

"In an ideal world, health and research should be the responsibility of the states and not a private task of profit-oriented pharmaceutical industries... Many times I have seen a CEO or President of a pharma decide not to investigate a promising medication due to the long-
term lack of investment it may offer... We must be thankful to those pharmaceutical companies who understand that HIV patents are not pill-boxes, but human beings who deserve a normal life."
~ Filippo von Schloesser [HIV/AIDS specialist]

 

Bureaucratisation, political correctness and collusion are devices of the greedy, cowardly, unconscionable and morally bankrupt, and, where healthcare is concerned, always yield the same devastating, dehumanising results.

In the UK, they have served to transform the National Health Service (NHS) from a compassionate provider into a dispassionate, unwieldy beast, wherein most of the hundreds of billions of pounds poured into it in recent years have disappeared into a black hole or been squandered on, and by, penny-pinching, target-obsessed bureaucrats and consultants - the hidden hands behind AID$ Inc. UK [see Behind the Curtain] - with a corresponding deterioration in services and standards of hygiene comparable to that of Third World hospitals. 

The same bureaucratic malaise has infected "quangoised" AIDS organisations globally who, for the last decade, have sung from identical PC hymn sheets. From the UK to Australia and New Zealand to America and Canada, AID$ Inc.’s loyal choir boys have been:
 
�?nbsp;Running the same ineffective campaigns;

�?nbsp;Entwined with Big Pharma and its vested interests;

�?nbsp;Repeating the same evasive tactics and obfuscating jargon;

�?nbsp;Spinning the same everything-in-the-garden's-rosy falsehoods;

�?nbsp;Misrepresenting the same dubious statistics to cover-up their failures;

�?nbsp;Jumping through the same government hoops to secure taxpayers' cash;

�?nbsp;Branding as liars those who dare speak out against their agenda of disempowerment...

All the while adopting the swaggering arrogance of a public monopoly combined with corporate greed; essentially a "mafia" of interconnected self-interests that waves an arrogant two-fingered salute at those they are mandated to serve.

Agencies that once boasted of their independence cosy up to their government and corporate funders, close ranks and collude to protect their mutual interests, strengthen their dominance, bolster their standing in the public eye and support each others' identical PC agendas and policies while neglecting their obligation to serve their respective communities' best interests and educate effectively on sexual health. Certainly, they give the impression of acting independently of the other, but at the end of the day they are each served by the same, PC-brainwashed system servers, with all information processed through the same PC filters to ensure that they tow the official, one-party PC line.

London's GMFA was established in the early 1990s by a group of gay men appalled by THT's distateful excesses, which were being widely reported by the gay and mainstream press at the time. Subsequently, as GMFA allowed its own infrastructure to become tainted amid claims of mismanagement and poor judgment, it climbed into bed with THT and, in recent years, has become a mere lap dog kowtowing to the dominant might of its former rival, the two agencies now speaking with one, politically correct voice on crucial sexual health matters.

"It is time we as a community woke up to what is so clearly happening in front of our very eyes and demand change. Perhaps the likes of THT and GMFA have become too incestuous and full of cronyism to even realise the extent of how their inbreeding is adversely impacing on the health of those they are mandated to serve."
~ Seb C [UK.Gay.Com boards]

THT and GMFA's "love-in" was unashamedly serenaded in April 2006, in the London club listings magazine QX, when THT spin doctor Will Nutland and GMFA mouth-piece Matthew Hodson rubber-stamped their mutual approval of the growing number of sex-on-premises venues in London that specifically cater for anonymous, and invariably unprotected, sexual encounters in adjacent articles that served to validate the others' stand, with no space provided for the opposing viewpoint.

"[Nutland] described such venues as being 'a social health benefit', as if they were outreach facilities for hospital clinics, even though those engaging in unsafe sex can easily infect themselves with STIs and other strains of HIV - something all NHS clinics would find absolutely unsupportable - [while] Hodson chillingly states: 'I support a smoker's right to continue smoking, even knowing that it is likely to kill him', as if to say:
'I support an HIV+ gay man's right to continue having unsafe sex, even knowing that is likely to kill him.'... It is [their] fundamental responsibility to maximise the health and wellbeing of HIV+ gay men, and not to sanction behaviours which can overload their immune systems with pathogens they can easily avoid."
~ Cass Mann [Positively Healthy]

"Over the past five years, the gay community has been keeping a secret: unprotected sex is becoming normal again. In the dark room of any gay club, in those pre-
sex conversations, one question - 'do you bareback?' - has become casual, ordinary, every day. Defenders of 'raw' sex see condoms as sissy, and brag that playing Russian roulette with their genitals is 'manly'."
~ Johann Hari [The Independent]

Going even further than defending the right of HIVers to transmit drug-resistant strains of the virus and STDs to one another in sex-on-premises venues while staunchly defending their right not to disclose their status to negative partners - maintaining that it is the responsibility of the negative partner to protect himself - in February 2008 the same organisations legitimised such venues that adopted their "code of good practise", Play Zone, on the pretext of providing "a safer, clean environment for customers and staff" along with safer sex information and PEP prescriptions, but yet again proving more active in their underlying support for the rights of HIVers - who comprise the core of visitors to such venues - than the chronic need to address the safety and welfare of negative men.

Justifying the move, the usual PC rhetoric was wheeled out by Will Nutland's sidekick spin drone, Rod Watson. Namely, that if such establishments didn’t exist, the same activity would be driven “underground�?and those in need of such information would therefore be out of reach. In the same breath, and as if on cue, Watson then insisted that THT is not the "sex police�? yet failed to explain exactly how the arrangement could work effectively without being properly enforced by the sponsoring HIV charities, who will only be running compliance checks at the venues in question twice a year, nor how they will reach the gay men driven even further underground to unsanitised, Play Zone-free venues in search of unregulated sex.

THT's Sydney counterpart, ACON, launched a similar exercise several years ago. Amid a “Sub-Saharan�?epidemic of HIV gripping Sydney’s gay community, community newspaper SX ran an article in 2006 that dared to question the prominent display of ACON's code of practice logo at HQ - a notorious casual sex club on the main Oxford Street strip that continued to host a dark orgy room but no condoms, and blatantly listed personal barebacking ads on its notice board. ACON retorted that the venue did not breach its code for safe sex premises, and HQ promptly switched its advertising to rival paper The Sydney Star Observer (SSO) which, unlike SX, grovels and kowtows to ACON to maintain its lucrative advertising contract. In August 2007, for example, SSO reported absurd claims made by Tony Trimingham, the founder of Family Drug  Support, that "Crystal meth is not addictive" and is less abused in Australia than hard drugs like heroin. While blatantly untrue, they nevertheless support ACON's agenda of misinformation.

"Someone has to take the blame for this outrageously long-lived, unbelievably reviving, preventable epidemic. We could start by throwing off the notion of gay pride, for there is nothing to be proud about given Sydney's HIV infection rates."
~ John Heard [The Australian]

Like THT and other gay men's HIV and sexual health organisations around the world, ACON's tentacles and influence spread far and wide. ACON's executive committee alone occupy the boards of at least 20 other community-related organisations, whose studies and reports invariably and nonsensically feature the same names giving nods to, backing up and defending each others' politically correct stances. An elite glamourati  who, aided by a compliant gay press, revel in disempowering their community by depriving it of vital health and life-sustaining information, and denying individuals and grassroots movements critical of their mistakes the right to be heard while espousing and propagating the same, narrow-minded self-interests.

"In many ways, what we in journalism need is a spine transplant. The nexus between powerful journalists and people in government and corporate power has become far too close. You can get so close to a source that you become part of the problem."
~ Dan Rather [Former CNN new anchor]

While ACON's antics have invited much community scorn and derision and stirred intense debate, culminating in the 2006 launch of CAAMA, its policies and actions are nevertheless praised and endorsed by similarly negligent and morally corrupt AIDS organisations worldwide, who push the same self-interests and PC agendas. In a document titled 'New Prevention Technologies', THT enthuses:

"LIFE OR METH's approach couldn't contrast more sharply with that in Australia. ACON in Sydney have typically taken a far less fear-based approach and have issued harm reduction tips to gay men, balanced alongside information on how to 'prepare and repair' for men intending to party with crystal meth."

What THT's document conveniently doesn't mention is that, in 2003, ACON similarly refused to take the threat of crystal seriously and failed to act to contain its presence within Sydney's gay community, responding only with tips on "how to prepare and repair". Four years later, meth has gone on to devastate vast swathes of Sydney's inner city gay community with "Sub Saharan" levels of MSM - as many as 18% - now HIV+, while meth itself is now Australia's biggest drug problem, with up to 100,000 regular users and 75 meth-related deaths recorded in 2005 alone - the same year that ACON provided over 70,000 HIV services to 15,000 "clients" who helped boost its turnover to $8,509,570, of which $5,447,503 was spent on staff costs and a meagre $584,592 on campaigns. Hardly a "balanced" response... [Click on ACON PDF, left]

The resultant community furore slates ACON for systematically presiding over the physiological and psychological decimation of thousands of Australians while at the same time sanctioning workshops ranging from "Why Lesbians are so Fabulous" to "Meet A Porn Star" nights", catering for 18-25 year olds eager to meet US porn stars in order to "learn the tricks of their trade". ACON's refusal to stigmatise meth and compassionately respond to pandemic levels of disease and addiction on its own doorstep - instead producing a how-to-use booklet and attacking its critics as "angry individuals with a personal life crisis" - has led some to call for it to be shut down on public health grounds and its board members tried for criminal negligence.

"As a professionally working HIV+ man who has tried to access services from ACON over the last 15 years, I have found nothing but a huge group of self-serving bureaucrats that do nothing... It is about time that the government dismantled this organisation and let the NSW Health Department stop doubling resources. What exactly does ACON do for people like me who are living with HIV? I haven't found one thing in 15 years. This is supposed to be the AIDS Council of NSW!"
~ Rob [Sydney Star Observer Forum]

 

 

“The sums just don’t add up. Preventing one single onward transmission of HIV/AIDS is estimated at somewhere between £500,000 and £1 million in individual health benefits and treatment costs. With nearly 8,000 infections last year, that’s a lot of zeros.�?BR>~ Clint Walters [Founder, Health Initiatives]

When first warned in late 2002 that crystal meth was making significant inroads into London’s gay scene, and that MSM needed to be educated about its potential risks to prevent it gaining a foothold, accelerating the spread of HIV and crossing over into the mainstream population, The Terrence Higgins Trust's Will Nutland and Campaign Officer Campbell Parker denied a potential problem existed and declared that, without firm proof to present to the Department of Health to show that meth was starting to take hold, would not be applying to the government for additional funding to raise public awareness via a sufficient gay press and media campaign.

Instead, THT compiled a leaflet that did more to promote crystal as a 'wonder sex drug' than a drug to be avoided. In the absence of a  properly-funded awareness campaign, meth has since infiltrated the gay scenes of all major UK cities, and meth labs are now emerging across England and Wales according to the police, who fear the UK could be on the verge of a mainstream epidemic. 

Nutland and Campbell had each witnessed the devastating impact of crystal up close within their own social circles, yet unbelievably neither had seen fit to persuade THT to dip into its £13m  war chest for the £30,000 or so needed to fund  an intensive campaign around its severe risks.

The evidence they said they needed finally emerged in April 2006 with publication of the 2004 Gay Men's Sex Survey (GMSS). Commissioned by THT with government funding - thereby raising questions about its independence - for the first time the survey, conducted by academics at Sigma Research, included questions on meth use. The findings were measured against the responses of 17,267 gay-identified men aged 14 to 72 from all walks of life and from every remote area of the UK as opposed to high-risk sub-groups such as metropolitan party, sauna and sex club-goers. The core finding - that "only 3%" of all gay men who completed the survey in the summer of 2004 used crystal only once or twice in the past 12 months - was highlighted and emphasised by Nutland in a cynically spun press release that sought to validate and reinforce THT's non-committal "too-low-to-act" stance.

Regardless of the spin placed on the finding, agreed in collusion between THT and Sigma behind closed doors, 3% of all gay-identified men in the UK is not an insignificant number, equating to approximately 90,000 individuals (assuming 5% of the population to be predominantly gay-identified males who fall within the survey's reach). Therefore, 90,000 gay men were at potential risk of contracting HIV when they used meth, even on the odd occasion that most claimed - a finding which, in itself, THT is duty-bound to act upon (as its mandate stated until recently: "To reduce the spread of HIV and STIs and promote good sexual health.") And at least 0.3% of respondents admitted using once or more a week, approximating to 9,000 habitual users - a not insubstantial number of gay men who face developing severe mental health problems, contracting HIV antibodies and, among those already infected, severe viral complications along with the numerous horrendous side effects associated with abusing meth.

How low is "too low" when 9,000 lives are needlessly at risk in this way? Only 0.55% of the UK population are estimated to be hard drug users, but ignoring that fact does not make it any less of a problem, least of all make it go away. In a 2007 interview, GMFA's Matthew Hodson stated matter-of-factly: "Currently our major advertising campaigns have about £17,000 allocated to cover their print and placement costs. That's only a little more than the estimated cost of treating an HIV-positive person in a year. For our work to be cost effective, each campaign need only delay the HIV infection of three or four people for a year, or of one person for four years. If we prevent just one youngish person from ever becoming infected, the campaign has paid for itself many times over."

This statement alone suggests how high AID$ Inc. UK sets its sights high when it comes to fulfilling its remit. Were it compassion-led, then most of the 9,000 habitual users - who invariably had little or no idea what crystal was when first offered to them �?would have had access to a forward-thinking awareness campaign highlighting the considerable risks involved, enabling them to make an informed choice and resulting in far less than the total estimated number of gay meth users in the UK - around 100,000, according to Sigma - risking exposure to the sexually disinhibiting effects from just one hit.

Instead they prohibited the plundering of funds collected directly from the hands of gay men at fundraising events to finance such a campaign, opting instead for the cop-out excuse that such funding would have to come from central government. The clear implication is that "charities" such as the THT and GMFA will not act to safeguard gay men's health unless additional external funding is involved. And even when compelling evidence does emerge to support a claim for such funding, they have shown they will continue to bluster and spin the figures to evade their duty to protect lives while several of their key players parade and flaunt their sexual conduct and drug excesses at sex-on-premises venues. [See Dereliction of Duty]

Not only don't Sigma's findings stand up to scrutiny because people tend not to tell the truth or be upfront when discussing their sex lives or drug taking; they also reveal serious flaws in its question formatting and information-gathering techniques, casting doubt over its integrity as an impartial research organisation. 

Critically, the GMSS is an intensive, multi-paged document that requires 30 minutes or so of total concentration to be completed; possibly the last activity a speeding meth user with a low or non-existent attention span would voluntarily participate in. That Sigma recorded that most of its respondents who used meth did so only once or sparingly proves that most habitual users indeed fell outside of the scope of Sigma's information-gathering techniques. Clinical research has established conclusively that many users are unable to use crystal once or in controlled moderation, yet Sigma falsely claims to reveal the full extent of meth use among gay men in the UK, with most using only once or twice a year - itself a finding that flies in the face of established clinical research!

Furthermore, Sigma doesn't take into account the chronic levels of denial common among meth users, nor does it allow for respondents who may have simply lied or been unforthcoming about the true extent of their usage due to shame, guilt or fear of being judged by their peers, rendering the core group of users which such flawed surveys set out to identify virtually invisible. The genuine level of meth usage among gay men in the UK, therefore, remains undetermined, albeit significantly higher than the misleading 3% figure seized upon by AID$ Inc. to whitewash the reality of the situation.

While Sigma did reveal that the percentage for all gay men using meth in London in the 12 month period more than doubled to 7%, this is still a long way short of subsequent surveys that have targeted gay urban men who are more likely to come into contact with the drug:

�?nbsp;Up to 20% of London scene-goers (i.e. gay gyms, clubs, saunas, etc.) were found by a University of London study to have used crystal between 2003-05, while a 2006 survey based on a similar sample found that 10% of all gay men - scene-goers and non-scene-
goers alike - had used, prompting City University's Jonathan Elford to urge: "Health promotion and awareness campaigns around crystal meth must focus on the gay club scene to have maximum impact."

�?nbsp;Newsstand magazine AXM was "astonished" to discover from its 2006 readers survey that 18% of its trendy, mainly under-30 metropolitan readership had used meth in the preceding 12 months, making a mockery of flippant comments by Gay Times' self-appointed "drugs czar", Richard Smith, who describes meth in the UK as a "phantom menace".

"'God help London if [crystal] ever hits here,' said QX of crystal in 1997. But just one look at Vauxhall ten years later is enough to tell you that crystal has arrived. Does London now need help? By 2010 we'll know one way or the other."
~ QX Magazine [April 2007]

"If we have learnt anything about the national drug habit since the term 'recreational drugs' was first introduced into the lingua franca, it is that where gay clubbers lead, straight youth soon follows."
~ Paul Flynn [The Times]

Aggregate figures collated from the 2005, 2006 and 2007 GMSS surveys record that 5% of all participants used crystal meth at least once in the preceding 12 months - a staggering 66% rise in users compared to the 2004 survey.

Gay Surrey is a charity that offers information on the county's social scene, youth programs, health issues and support pages. "We constantly keep updated with issues surrounding the gay community and was made aware of the increasing problems surrounding crystal meth," says its Chairman, Gino Meriano. "We took on board the time and energy to find out more about this awful drug and how it affects our local community and the UK as a whole. From extensive research it was made apparent that the only organisation truly dedicated to helping the cause was LIFE OR METH."

Gay Surrey supported LIFE OR METH by creating a dedicated page on its website to monitor the kind of response it would receive in its campaign for a better understanding and increased awareness of crystal. "After only one month, it became obvious that this was a major concern for all of us," says Gino. "The LIFE OR METH page jumped to first place under the support pages, a staggering result and proving the need for more support from organisations in Surrey and around the UK about how dangerous, harmful and life threatening crystal meth is. We need all the help we can get to send a message out to the community and organisations that this serious issue must be addressed immediately."

Most worrying of all, however, were the 2004 GMSS findings that THT didn't publicise: namely, the 20% of all HIV+ MSM in London who used crystal in the preceding 12 months.

This figure skyrockets to 35% of all HIV+ men with multiple partners - namely those estimated to be among the core 5% or so of all HIVers said to keep a particular community's "viral wildfire" burning. By failing to act on their own funded research, Sigma and THT's unswerving ability for finding agreeable figures among damning statistics makes them complicit in the spread of HIV to negative men who unwittingly link up with - and are being introduced to meth by - the 5% or so core group of promiscuous HIV+ meth users on websites like Gaydar and at THT ‘Play Zone�?endorsed underground sex clubs and saunas, while betraying HIV+ men themselves by withholding vital information about crystal's cancer-like effect on their immune systems. Namely, that it:

�?nbsp;Replicates HIV five to 15-fold in the brain, causing inflammation and accelerated HIV-related dementia;

�?nbsp;Interferes with the efficacy of, and adherence to, AIDS medications;

�?nbsp;Boosts viral loads;

�?nbsp;Depletes T-cells;

...ultimately hastening progression to full-blown AIDS!

Sexual health organisations have a social and moral duty to dispense such vital information, but are negligently failing to do so.

Indeed, it's now being debated whether meth's ravaging effect on the immune system actually replicates many of the symptoms associated with full-
blown AIDS regardless of whether HIV antibodies are present, since some MSM who were thought to be immune to contracting HIV due to a rare protective protein in their cellular make-up have gone on to develop full-blown AIDS only since becoming addicted to crystal...

Quite simply, the GMSS findings do not bear witness, nor do they equate with the personal or anecdotal experiences of the average gay urban scene-goer, and are being used by the THT and Sigma - singing to the same songsheet rather than speaking as independent voices - to trivialise and mask the true extent of crystal usage among at-risk subgroups of gay society exposed to the drug and vulnerable to its detrimental effects. Of its meth findings, Sigma sanctimoniously concludes:

"While crystal may have particularly spectacular addictive qualities, it remains hard to see why it occupies such a large part of the current drugs debate, except by reference to faddishness and the tendency to generate moral panic among both the HIV sector and the media."

"If ever such an agency should be hauled over the coals for front-loading survey questions and distorting and manipulating said results to achieve a pre-determined outcome that complies with the politically correct agenda of their THT paymasters, then it is [Sigma Research]."
- P. Rhoades [Pink Paper letters]

President Benjamin Disraeli famously said, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."  The virulent spread of crystal meth in gay communities
throughout the UK and out into mainstream society is mirroring exactly what was allowed to occur in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - a precedent that can, like their negligent counterparts before them, be laid squarely at the feet of the THT, GMFA and the now insolvent - and therefore never likely to be held to account - UKC, who have dismissed all mainstream press coverage that has tapped into what is really happening as "hysteria"  while vigorously resisting dispensing clearcut information about meth's correlative and causative link with HIV infection and the severe, life-threatening risks it poses to HIV+ users and abusers.

The GMSS lacks scientific credibility because it is representative only of those who opted to take part as opposed to being a randomised cross-sampling of gay men. But AID$ Inc. has long played fast and loose with the facts to suit its agenda, and often shown a brazen contempt for the work it is tasked to carry out. The urgency with which the now deceased HIV charity UK Coalition handled its Government-funded 2005 crystal brief to gauge the extent of meth use in London, for example, can be measured by the fact that it did not deliver its findings until March 2007, despite its "benchmark" being based on the responses of a self-selected sample of only 93 gay and bisexual men (among whom over 16% said they administered the drug prior to visiting a sex-on-premises venue, while 30% had used at sex parties).

Meanwhile, UKC's ex-Chairman, Stephen Bitti - a veteran of London's party scene - saw his salary hiked by vast amounts in recent years, allegedly forced through by himself at board level, and contributing to a substantial cash shortfall in UKC's last financial year that resulted in its demise at 5pm on July 25, 2007 and, with it, the death of the highly-regarded Positive Nation magazine, which for many HIVers was a friend and lifeline. In a rare display of accountability by an AID$ Inc. executive, Bitti acknowledged that he had made "mistakes" and jumped the sinking ship a month earlier to take a job within the same NHS trusts whose HIV prevention funding he had frittered away, advising on sexual health. "I have made errors of judgement. I'm not proud of this," he said. The gay press declined to probe further, but mainstream political magazine Private Eye shed futher light on UKC's closure in August 2007, reporting that in excess of £150,000 of public funds intended to benefit HIVers had been misappropriated or squandered by Bitti, with the likelihood of much more being unnaccounted for...

It's easy to believe that a self-serving agenda to deprive MSM of the hard facts about meth - to disempower and render them helpless victims as occurred with HIV/AIDS, again using a PC pretext as their excuse to not get tough with the drug - is emerging once again...

How else to explain AID$ Inc.UK/Australia's continued pretence that the elephant in the room doesn't exist? Or the creaking, heartless inefficiency shown in the response to the proliferation of meth in the US; a crisis easily on a par with the insane change of direction these same agencies took in the 1990s, when they removed their collective finger from the safe sex button? With each excuse not to return to effective HIV prevention campaigning, or to tackle the spread of correlated and causative health risks head-on, their agenda to systematically enrich themselves off the misery, pain and suffering of the communities they are abysmally failing becomes ever more transparent...

"Just as Michael Moore reveals in his film, Sicko, like the American health insurance system today the AIDS industry is all about maximising profits, and that means pushing policies that run counter to preventing negative men seroconverting, such as endorsing sex-on-venue establishments and adverts that meaninglessly claim that "9 out of 10 gay men use condoms". Yes, THT, but how many of these 9 men use condoms ALL of the time? THT's PR dept. sure knows how to spin and fiddle the figures to give the impression that AIDS prevention in this country is working when it is damn well broke!"
~ SC [UK.Gay.Com boards]