"Over 25 years, the gay community has slowly been colonised by the AIDS industry. With the brave vision of our queer pioneers commodified by this oligarchy, is it any wonder so many of us have lost any sense of gay pride and seek refuge in drugs like crystal meth? Under the rubric of 'safe sex education', this elite has influence in every sector of queerdom and beyond, from [local] government to the club scene, community groups and gay media. That a body with such an obvious agenda of self-interest is funded to educate on public health issues should be of concern to all."

~ G. H. Armstrong [SX, Sydney]

Press and public relations officers - "spin doctors" - are

tasked with shaping and influencing public opinion, typically via the manipulation and distortion of words into simplistic "soundbites", invariably to serve a pre-planned and set agenda (i.e. propaganda). Where the bureaucratic paranoia of AID$ Inc. is concerned, it is the press officer's role to promote the sector as the naturally selected arbiter of sexual health and guardian of the moral high ground, in the process masking its negligence, failures and malpractices by fabricating/ spinning cosy illusions, however patently inappropriate, absurd, surreal or downright preposterous, that are often far detached from reality.

The modern world's demand for fast, disposable news means that journalists on tight deadlines and budgets rarely venture below the cracks to deconstruct the highly-processed, neatly-packaged soundbites disseminated by these masters of deception in order to get to the truth. When the national press cover HIV, it is THT's press office they will invariably turn to as their one stop shop, and whichever spin doctor/"Head of Health Promotion is in residence will then manipulate whatever words are necessary to present AID$ Inc. UK in the most favourable light. It doesn't matter which spin doctor is in residence at the time because they all recite from identical PC songsheets.

"We are accountable to our communities, donors and funders. We work with integrity, transparency and efficiency. We communicate clearly and responsibly."

~ Terrence Higgins Trust [which counts "honesty" as one of its core values in its Mission Statement]

In November 2006, the UK's Independent newspaper ran two HIV stories (HIV Rise Blamed on Complacency  and So Why Has This Suicidal Shift happened?), reporting as fact THT dogma that, while theoretically and statistically implausible, MSM simultaneously ditched condoms in a united pact of recklessness ("condom fatigue"), instead of what really happened: namely, that UK MSM have become complacent around safe sex, but it is a complacency born of, and instilled by, a woefully aloof and negligent HIV sector; one that is paralysed by indifference, leads by its own appalling example, and which has demonstrated that it will go out of its way to deprive MSM of knowledge they need to stay healthy.

"It has only been the smaller, compassion-led community groups who hit early and hard, instead of wasting time and lives. There are two diseases being fought here, on all three continents - complacency and addiction. I know how to fight the latter, but head-in-the-sand recalcitrants, I confess, really do baffle me."

~ Shayne Chester [CAAMA]

In the latter article, Will Nutland bemoaned the fact that government anti-AIDS campaigns have been redirected away from young gay men who are most at risk towards straight teenagers who are statistically unlikely to contract HIV. "The result is that money is being wasted targeting low-risk straight holidaymakers, and high-risk people are not getting the protection they need," he said, neglecting to explain why THT won't donate even a fraction of its £12+ million annual cash haul to working with worthy causes like gay under 21s website, Puffta, to emphasise the dire need for safe sex practices among young MSM.

"Prevention and support is needed, and it needs to be directed at gay youth... I don't remember the scary adverts, and maybe something like that is needed as a wake-up call to young gay men so they get the message."

~ Simon Johnston [Puffta founder]

Instead, Nutland considers it acceptable practise to push PEP to impressionable teenagers on Puffta, among who, according to a 2006 survey of 800 members, 35% regularly bareback and 40% aren't even aware of their HIV-status. Meanwhile, in central London, frontline STI clinicians are giving positive HIV diagnoses daily to under 25s who routinely bareback, some of whom go direct from school to the gay scene completely clueless, with free club mags their only source of frivolous and sleazy sexual information.

"Their lives are ending before they begin. It's like an AIDS mafia has hijacked gay men's health in this country and is doing all it can to prevent young men accessing the advice and information they need to protect themselves."

~ A central London STI clinician

"When I open a copy of Boyz or QX I am constantly presented with campaigns of sleazy guys either 'fucking safe' or sleazy guys that are dealing with the consequences of not 'fucking safe'. Quite frankly, how the youth [are supposed to] identify with those messages when they are presented in a way that is alien to their lifestyle just goes to show how out of tune [these campaigns] are with real gay people."

~ FT [Disco Damaged]

In March, BBC's Newsnight reported on the craze for bareback porn and interviewed several young men who contracted HIV during filming, one of whom, in the following exchange, symbolises the ignorance of a generation of UK youngsters weaned on ineffective HIV campaigns that have failed to distinguish the virus from other, curable STDs:

John Gadsby, 20: "The way I see it is I've got (HIV) now so I've already got it."

Newsnight presenter: "But you know if you get a superinfection, the point behind that is you could then have a strain of the virus that's resistant to drugs."

JG: "Yeah, I suppose, but I'm quite happy with the risks that I'm taking. I knew the risks from the start and I was happy with that and everything with the testing system... More than happy to carry on because I enjoy what I do."

NP: "Some people listening will see your attitude as complacent bordering on irresponsible, both towards yourself and to other people and ultimately to taxpayers who will end up having to pay for your treatment."

JG: "Yeah, I know...sorry. Nowt I can do now..."

AID$ Inc.'s stranglehold and kudos enables its malign influence to pervade gay media and community networks with ease and set its own agenda, its negligence and misdemeanours attracting little attention for fear of losing prestige and ad revenue. Start a gay-oriented organisation of any kind today and you too can expect "the call" from AID$ Inc. to ensure that you are aware that it is the (self-appointed) eternal fount of all HIV wisdom and guardian of your community's health and wellbeing. Oh, and to remind you to divert all HIV-related calls their way, particularly from those newly-seroconverted...

AID$ Inc.'s masterfully manipulated press releases are automatically reprinted word for word on such media and its ill-conceived ad campaigns reproduced by a docile, dumbed-down gay press run largely by cowardly editors incapable of independent thought that can't be bought. Who, instead of asking the important questions - such as why are HIV infection rates really soaring? - collude instead to perpetuate the notion that the HIV sector serves the gay community's best interests, leaving enlightened observers and whistle blowers to shout to be heard on letters pages and internet discussion boards.

"I was seduced by magazines like Boyz and QX, who made sex in public places look so carefree and uncomplicated... If we as gay men have been led astray by HIV agencies and the gay press in a false sense of security, it is the HIV agencies and gay press who should explain to the British taxpayer exactly what their role has been while presiding over record HIV rates, clinical care costs and an ever-increasing drugs bill for what is an easily avoidable disease."

~ Michael Cottrell [UK AIDS activist]

In response to the reclassification of crystal meth in the UK to Class A in January 2007, Nutland maintained that THT would not act to prepare for a possible future epidemic unless the government stumped up yet more funding specifically for this purpose. "The reclassification of crystal meth is a pragmatic move and brings it in line with other drugs of this nature," he stated, after years of denying the threat existed. "However, reclassification needs to come hand in hand with funding for education and effective treatment services."

Fact: THT raises millions of pounds from the UK government and hundreds of thousands more via their many fundraising initiatives, spin-offs, pharmaceutical industry donations, celebrity auctions and gala dinners - a portion of which most would reasonably expect to see channelled back into appropriate health awareness campaigns and initiatives.

"The proceeds of the late Freddie Mercury's hit single Bohemian Rhapsody, totalling £1 million, have been donated to THT. Its Chief Executive, Nick Partridge, says that the money will be spent on a new headquarters. Who really benefits from that?"

~ Ron Aitken [Free Life, January 1993]

THT's 2004/5 financial statement showed that just £99,000 was spent that year on health campaigns - less than 1% of its total income for the period...

THT's history of financial impropriety is well-

documented, but can anything be more financially irregular than a "charity" that raises £12+ million a year, spends £7 million (60p in every pound) of that amount on "staff costs" - including private sector salaries, extravagant perks and generous pension schemes - millions more on lavish new Central London premises and then states, matter-of-factly, that it needs yet more taxpayers' cash to fund HIV campaigns or to warn MSM about the most dangerous health threat to hit the UK gay community since AIDS?

 

"What I find alarming about THT is their decision to answer criticisms not in a constructive way but in a way which personally deflects responsibility away from their executives. Everything they do does not have the health of gay men at its heart but is done to protect their own careers."

~ Jimmy Y [UK.Gay.Com discussion board]

AID$ Inc. UK's complacency around crystal meth hit home in March 2005, at an HIV prevention conference in Bristol, when Perry Halkitis, a respected psychologist at New York University, warned that its addictiveness can make occasional use rapidly escalate to regular use, as occurred in New York in the late 1990s. He pointed out that as recently as 1998, crystal was mainly a west coast phenomenon in the US with only around 7% of New York MSM using, leaping by 50% a year later following the arrival of Viagra. "The discussion on crystal in the UK feels a lot like it did in New York in 1998," Halkitis told the conference. "The time to start taking effective public health measures to make sure it doesn't take over the UK scene is now." A warning that AID$ Inc. UK dismissed and continues to ignore...

“Crystal is increasingly, and simplistically, being linked in the eyes of the mainstream (and parts of the gay) press, to unsafe sexual behaviour amongst gay men. Just as with the net last year, a bunch of couldn’t-care-

less bug chasers the year before and bathhouses in the 1980s, crystal has become the casual explanation for HIV infections amongst gay men.”

~ Will Nutland [Aidsmap, June 2005]

"If we want to avoid a renewed crisis, we have to do something that is very difficult for gay people: we have to restigmatise bareback sex and make crystal meth socially unacceptable on the gay scene. The alternative is another mass culling of the gay population."

~ Johann Hari [The Independent]

GMFA is little better when it comes to avoiding harsh realities in favour of funding titilating bondage, sauna cruising courses and "arse classes", PEP, insipidly frivolous HIV campaigns and its patronising sexual health magazine, Fusion.

This conversation took place between a member of the public and an unnamed GMFA representative in May 2006:

Caller: Hello, I wonder if you can help me. A 20-year-

old friend of mine has started using crystal meth and he seroconverted while using at a sex party where everyone was smoking from a meth pipe.

GMFA: Ok.

Caller: What do you advise? Do you have any information available?

GMFA: Yes, get your friend to contact THT and they will outline the services they offer to people with HIV.

Caller: No, I mean with regard to cystal meth. You must know that a lot of men on the scene are using these days? What information are you providing about its dangers?

GMFA: We don't provide information about crystal.

Caller: What?!

GMFA: The results of the last Gay Men's Sex Survey show that only 3% of gay men in the UK have ever tried crystal.

Caller: Why are you not providing reliable information about this dangerous drug for those who do come into contact with it? Isn't GMFA supposed to be protecting the health of gay men?

GMFA: Well, er...

Caller: Your attitude is appalling! Crystal meth has destroyed thousands of lives across America and in Australia, and you have no plans to prevent the possibility of a similar catastrophe occurring here?

GMFA: I am sorry, but I must advise you that I am about to terminate this call. Good bye.

Meanwhile, the roll call of celebrities who harbour the delusion that raising funds and attending AIDS charity gala functions somehow helps stem the spread of HIV queue up to fashionably support AID$ Inc. In reality, the patronages of the likes of Sir Richard Branson, Dame Judi Dench, Stephen Fry, Sir Elton John et al serve only to add a veneer of respectability and validation for AID$ Inc.'s negligence and subterfuge, and exacerbate its greed and excesses further as it systematically fails to respond to the community's real health needs, instead squandering celebrity-driven funds on multi-million pound office upgrades, suites of executive cars, exorbitant staff salaries and lavish perks. In reality, such well-meaning celebrities are unwitting collaborators to AID$ Inc.'s immorally bankrupt practises, their naivety fueling the so-called "complacency" of young MSM who routinely bareback and/or smoke/"slam" Class A drugs like crystal meth with abandon.

"The organisations that are in place and have been in place for 20 years have not ended this crisis. It ain't working!"

~ Harvey Fierstein [Celebrity AIDS activist]