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25 Years Later, International AIDS Conference Returns To U.S. After Lift Of HIV Travel Ban

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Back in June 1990, thousands of people from around the world convened in San Francisco for the Sixth International AIDS Conference. Based at the city’s Marriott Hotel, the conference included several days of panels, discussions, and speeches. It was the third time the conference, the premier international event focused on the AIDS epidemic, had been held in the United States—and it would be the last time for more than 20 years. Indeed, when the conference meets in Washington, D.C. next week, on July 22, it will mark the event’s return to U.S. soil after an enforced hiatus. The story of how this hiatus came about is the story of how a group of health organizations and activists, including hundreds who protested at the San Francisco conference, helped to embarrass and punish the United States for so long as it failed to overturn long-standing, discriminatory policies directed at people living with HIV. The particular policies in question were immigration restrictions, otherwise known collectively as the “HIV travel ban.” First imposed in 1987 thanks to a bill sponsored by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), these restrictions barred HIV-positive individuals from obtaining tourist visas or permanent residence in the U.S. without disclosing their status and then receiving special permission to enter the country. In 1989, on the basis of the travel ban, Hans Paul Verhoef, a Dutch AIDS educator, was detained at a Minnesota airport and held for five days after AZT was found in his luggage. It became clear that the same could happen to many people planning to attend the International AIDS Conference in San Francisco, so the Red Cross, World Health Organization, several foreign countries’ health ministries, and other organizations began lobbying the U.S. government to change the law. They threatened to boycott the conference if their demands were not met. The best they got, however, was the announcement in April 1990, two months before the conference, that the government would offer a special 10-day visa that would allow people attending conferences “in the public interest” to travel in the U.S. without having to disclose their HIV status. Generally speaking, however, HIV would remain on a list of “excludable” diseases until Congress moved to negate Helms’s successful bill.

To many organizations and activists, this was an insufficient response. Some decided to proceed with boycotting the conference—but others orchestrated protests at the event. As with many AIDS-related protests at the time, ACT UP, the powerful activist organization founded in New York in 1987, was at the forefront of these demonstrations. ACT UP members traveled from around the country to San Francisco with a protest agenda, teaming up with the Bay City’s chapter of the organization. (In addition to a change in immigration policy, ACT UP demanded better access to HIV drugs, more money for research, and other improvements to the domestic fight against AIDS.) The San Francisco chapter produced a handbook for the event that included information about planned demonstrations and diagrams of the Marriott hotel. The handbook also instructed people on what to do if arrested, something that often happened during ACT UP protests:

“Be sure somebody has your full name—yell it out. We can’t find you in jail if we don’t know your name.”

The most visible protest at the conference came during a speech delivered by Louis Sullivan, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. According to an account in the Wall Street Journal, ACT UP members entered the room shouting “shame.” Sullivan was then “showered by paper missiles” and “went almost completely unheard” because of the “shrieking of whistles and airhorns.” The New York Times reported, “Sullivan’s words were intelligible only because the woman standing next to him interpreted his remarks in sign language for the deaf.” The protesters were joined by some attendees at the conference, including speakers and scientists who wore red armbands in protest of the travel ban and some who offered their access passes to the activists so that they could infiltrate the event more easily. They also found an ally in Lars Kalling, the president of the International AIDS Society (IAS), which organized the conference. “How can we expect the private person to behave in a rational and responsible way . . . when states set a bad example by instituting irrational laws towards HIV-infected people?,” Kalling said to the room just before Sullivan’s speech. The San Francisco protests were successful insofar as they brought heightened attention to the travel ban. Yet the immigration restrictions remained in place, and so activists and many in the global AIDS research community continued their battle. But they had a new goal: Rather than boycotting or heckling the event, they were determined to prevent another International AIDS Conference from taking place in the U.S. until the immigration restrictions were lifted. That meant advocating against the plan to hold the conference in Boston in 1992.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H3zefhq9Ql4

ACT UP was again very visible and vocal. In San Francisco, an Immigration Working Group was formed to fight the travel ban. At the 1991 international conference, which was held in Florence, ACT UP members who had traveled to Italy for the event issued a statement that said, in no uncertain terms:

“THE CONFERENCE CAN BE MOVED. THE CONFERENCE MUST BE MOVED!!! … If the organizers of next year’s conference and if the Board of Directors of Harvard University [which was helping plan the event] attempt to hold this conference in Boston, or any other city in the United States of America, while these discriminatory laws stand against those of us infected with HIV, we’ll give them a Tea Party they’ll never forget!”

At the close of the Florence conference, Max Essex, a virologist at Harvard, told those gathered that the threats to disrupt or prevent the conference in Boston were misguided. “I am grieved that the crass, domestic, American political agenda and the ultimatums I have received from activists have conspired in a bizarre alliance to deny the free exchange of information necessary to fight AIDS,” he said, according to The Washington Post. And yet, organizers of the conference acknowledged that, given pressure from activists, if the U.S. government did not lift the travel ban, the Boston event would likely be canceled. Late that summer, the first Bush administration announced it would revise the travel ban to permit some limited entry into the U.S. Again, however, this was deemed an inadequate response to the demands for change. On August 16, conference organizers formally announced that the event would not be held in Boston. “Up until the last moment, there was great hope that the travel restrictions might change and it might be possible to hold the meeting in Boston,” said James Mann, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s school of public health, according to The Washington Post. “But we could no longer afford to be held hostage to uncertainty.” President George H.W. Bush responded to the decision by reaffirming his commitment to the travel ban: “That policy is a good, sound policy. The American people, I think, are supportive of it.” The activism regarding the 1992 conference did not end there, however. Indeed, the travel ban remained in place, so the event, which was relocated to Amsterdam, provided a symbolic stage on which to again condemn the U.S. ACT UP recognized this, and so Tomás Fábregas, a HIV-positive Spanish citizen living in the United States and a member of the Immigration Working Group in San Francisco, defied the travel ban by going to Amsterdam for the conference, hosting a press event (with special guest Elizabeth Taylor), publicly daring the U.S. government to arrest him, and then returning to San Francisco. There, he was greeted by supporters and the media. Rather than endure protests and further media scrutiny, authorities allowed Fábregas into the country. In the eyes of many, it was another victory in the long fight to remove the travel ban. Perhaps the most notable victory for activists at this time, however, was the decision by the IAS to institute a formal policy that would indefinitely prevent the international conference from being held in the U.S. In 1992, the organization’s governing body agreed to prohibit the conference from being held anywhere that, according to the body’s own language, “restrict[s] short-term entry of people living with HIV and AIDS, and/or require prospective HIV-positive visitors to declare their HIV status on visa application forms or other documentation required for entry into the country.” The policy was a slap in the face of the U.S., and it would ultimately prove a public and embarrassing reminder over the next 17 years of the country’s discriminatory policies. The sad reality, of course, is that this reminder lasted so long because the U.S. did not finally lift the HIV travel ban until 2009. At that point, it was one of only a dozen countries that still imposed a ban, finding itself in the company of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Sudan. At the time of its removal, President Barack Obama called the initiation of the restrictions more than two decades prior “a decision rooted in fear rather than fact.” Yet that it took the U.S. so long to reverse the ban does not discount the activist efforts surrounding the San Francisco and Boston conferences in the early 1990s. The demonstrations, letters, and speeches issued, as well as the final decision by the IAS to prevent the conference from taking place in the U.S., were early and loud signals of what would and would not be tolerated by the scientific, public health, and LGBT communities in the fight against AIDS. In other words, while there is reason to celebrate the return of the International AIDS Conference to the United States this week, there is also reason to appreciate its long absence. Research for this article was conducted in part at the Yale archives. Image, top, via Facebook Seyward Darby is a freelance writer currently living in Kosovo. She is working for a local human rights group on LGBT and freedom of expression projects with support from the Coca-Cola World Fund and Kirby-Simon Fellowship Program at Yale University. Her organization receives some funding from the U.S. government. 

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News

‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

READ MORE: Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

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Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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OPINION

Trump Complains He’s ‘Not Allowed to Talk’ as He Gripes Live on Camera

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April 23, 2024

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At the end of another short courtroom day that required barely three hours of Donald Trump’s time, the ex-president spoke to reporters inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building to complain about a wide variety of perceived and alleged wrongs he is suffering, including, not being “allowed to talk.”

The ex-president’s presence was required only from 11 AM until just 2 PM. Judge Juan Merchan is overseeing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the ex-president in a case that has already drawn a straight line through the “hush money” headlines to correct them to alleged criminal conspiracy and election interference.

Judge Merchan, for nearly two hours Tuesday morning, heard prosecutors’ allegations that Trump has violated his gag order ten times, and heard defense counsel’s claims that he had not.

It did not go well for the Trump legal team, with Judge Merchan toward the end of the hearing, during which no jurors were allowed, telling Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

During the day’s hearing, jurors heard prosecutors’ lead witness, the former head of the company that publishes the National Enquirer tabloid, David Pecker, explain how he was working to help the Trump campaign.

“David Pecker testifies that, following his 2015 meeting with Trump and [Michael] Cohen, he met with former National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard,” MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin reports. “Pecker outlined the arrangement and described it as ‘highly private and confidential.’ Pecker asked Howard to notify the tabloid’s West Coast and East Coast bureau chiefs that any stories that came in about Trump or the 2016 election must be vetted and brought straight to Pecker — and ‘they’ll have to be brought to Cohen.’ Pecker told Howard the arrangement needed to stay a secret because it was being carried out to help Trump’s campaign.”

Trump did not discuss any evidence against him with reporters, but he did complain about the gag order. And President Joe Biden. And the temperature in the courtroom. And his apparent attempt to stay awake, which has been a problem for him almost every day in court.

“We have a gag order, which to me is totally unconstitutional, I’m not allowed to talk but people are allowed to talk about me,” Trump told reporters, emphasizing the last word in that sentence.

“So they can talk about me, they can say whatever they want, they can lie. But I’m not allowed to say anything, I just have to sit back and look at why a conflicted judge has ordered me to have a gag order.”

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“I don’t think anybody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump claimed, falsely implying no criminal defendant has ever had a gag order imposed on them previously. “I’d love to talk to you people, I’d love to say everything that’s on my mind, but I’m restricted because I have a gag order, and I’m not sure that anybody’s ever seen anything like this before.”

Trump then started to discuss the “articles” in his hand, what appeared to be dozens of articles he said had “all good headlines,” while implying they claimed “the case is a sham.”

Trump oversimplified the legal arguments attached to his gag order, as discussed with Judge Merchan Tuesday morning. The judge has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to hold Trump in contempt.

“So I put an article in and then somebody’s name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of a gag order,” he told reporters, apparently referring to his posts on Truth Social with persecutes say violated his gag order. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s totally unconstitutional. I don’t believe it’s ever – not to this extent – ever happened before. I’m not allowed to defend myself and yet other people are allowed to say whatever they want about me. Very, very unfair.”

“Having to do with the schools and the closings – that’s Biden’s fault,” Trump said, strangely, as if the COVID pandemic were still officially in process. “And by the way, this trial is all Biden, this is all Biden just in case anybody has any question. And they’re keeping me, in a courtroom that’s freezing by the way, all day long while he’s out campaigning, that’s probably an advantage because he can’t campaign.”

“Nobody knows what he’s doing. he can’t put two sentences together. But he’s out campaigning. He’s campaigning and I’m here and I’m sitting here sitting up as straight as I can all day long because you know, it’s a very unfair situation,” Trump lamented. “So we’re locked up in a courtroom and this guy’s out there campaigning, if you call it a campaign, every time he opens his mouth he gets himself into trouble.”

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News

Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

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April 23, 2024

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Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s beach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

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“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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