From: ACTUPSF@aol.com
To: ACTUPSF@aol.com
Subject: ACT UP Against Anti-Gay AOL Warnings!
Date: 10/30/2001 20:35:31


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2001

Contacts:
David Pasquarelli -- (415) 637-HOMO
Todd Swindell -- (415) 864-6686

ACT UP Outraged Over Anti-Gay America Online Warnings
-----
Activists demand independently verified evidence that gay Internet chat rooms
spread syphilis; urge ouster of Health Department homophobe Jeffrey Klausner.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Gay activists, angered over unverified health department
claims of a "big syphilis spike" allegedly driven by gay internet chat rooms,
today urged America Online (AOL) to resist pressure from government health
officials to post STD warnings exclusively in cyberspots where homosexual men
meet. ACT UP members called the posting plan the "bigoted brainchild" of Dr.
Jeffrey Klausner, Director of San Francisco's STD Prevention Unit, and warned
that it is a frightening measure to invade homosexual men's privacy online
and undermine the gay male community's self-esteem and safety. To counter the
proposed AOL posting plan, activists demanded the immediate resignation of
Klausner calling him "the gay community's public enemy #1."

"Where is the evidence of this alleged syphilis increase and the proof that,
if it exists at all, gay chat rooms are to blame?" asked ACT UP member David
Pasquarelli. "Klausner stammers on endlessly about gay sex spreading disease
and death without any verifiable numbers published in peer-reviewed studies.
It's called sexual scapegoating and San Francisco's gay male community has
had enough. Jeffrey Klausner must go!"

ACT UP San Francisco members demand that:

1) America Online refrain from singling out gay men and targeting them with
STD warnings. Furthermore, AOL must refuse to be pressured into violating
patron privacy by being used as a health department vehicle to harass gay
subscribers.

2) The San Francisco Department of Public Health must submit all STD and AIDS
numbers to an independent entity that verifies statistics and interprets
their analysis before releasing them to the media. Results of the independent
statistical analysis will be presented to the gay community through a fair
and balanced public forum prior to any comments made to the press by public
health officials.

3) The San Francisco Department of Public Health must immediately terminate
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner's employment for engaging in ongoing homophobic actions
that compromise the self-esteem and safety of the gay community. His conduct
violates the department's mission to promote community health by compromising
the gay community's psychological well-being. The health department's
harassment of gays, under Klausner's leadership, is a violation of the city's
human rights and anti-discrimination ordinances.

Activists urge community members to zap Dr. Klausner on Halloween by phoning,
faxing, and e-mailing him:

-----

Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, Director of San Francisco's STD Prevention Unit

Office: (415) 554-8486

Fax: (415) 554-9636

Home: (415) 674-9460

E-mail: jeff_klausner@dph.sf.ca.us

-----

ACT UP members point out that in 1999 the San Francisco Department of Public
Health broadcast alarmist full-page ads in the gay press featuring pictures
of ticking time bombs and scary headlines about an out-of-control syphilis
outbreak. However, upon investigation, activists discovered that the
statistics showed syphilis at its lowest rates ever with steep declines in
the number of positive results per tests administered. ACT UP alleged that
DPH was playing a deceptive numbers game by concealing that they drastically
increased syphilis screening and targeted gay men to cook up higher numbers
for STD and AIDS funding purposes.

Like a bad Halloween repeat, the syphilis scare resurfaced this week in an
October 26, 2001 article by Christopher Heredia of the San Francisco
Chronicle entitled "Big spike in cases of syphilis in S.F." As in the past,
no numbers of tests administered were provided to the public in order to put
into perspective the number of syphilis-positive results. More frightening,
however, were demands by Dr. Klausner for America Online to institute a
radically anti-gay policy of posting intrusive STD warnings exclusively in
gay chat rooms.

ACT UP members warn that following Klausner's bogus 1999 syphilis scare,
homophobic harassment of gay America Online chat rooms skyrocketed ("Net
syphilis issue spurs hate mail," August 26, 1999, San Francisco Examiner)

"We're sick of the Department of Homophobia demonizing our most intimate
moments as diseased and deadly in order to drum up more government funding,"
commented an angry Todd Swindell of ACT UP. "The end result of their alarmist
actions is always the same: more anti-gay harassment and violence. We're not
going to stand for it anymore!"

=====

San Francisco Examiner
August 26, 1999

Net syphilis issue spurs hate mail
-----
By Ilene Lelchuk
of the Examiner Staff

An Internet chat room for gay men was bombarded with hate mail following
media reports that health officials traced a syphilis outbreak to people who
met there.

Users of the America Online chat room SFM4M -- San Francisco Men 4 Men -- who
logged on Wednesday said they received anti-gay messages filled with
profanity and death threats.

"I logged on at 7 a.m. and rather than have a nervous breakdown I logged
off," said Jay, who declined to give his full name because he feared more
harassment.

Jay, a 34-year-old Web page designer in San Francisco, said he forwarded the
worst messages to AOL officials.

AOL spokesman Rich D'Amato, who was not aware of the on-screen attacks, said
AOL has a Community Action Team that can monitor problems in chat rooms. "Any
kind of personal or community-directed harassment would violate AOL's terms
of service," D'Amato said.

The flood of anti-gay messages followed publicity surrounding the San
Francisco Health Department's attempt to track a disease through cyberspace
for the first time. The department launched its computer-age campaign after a
few men tested positive for syphilis and told health officials that they met
their last partners in SFM4M.

The Health Department wanted to warn other chat room users about the syphilis
cases, but the participants are virtually anonymous and known only by their
screen personas. AOL, following its strict privacy policy, declined to
release names, phone numbers or addresses without a court order.

So health officials paired with PlanetOut, the largest online service for
gays, lesbians and bisexuals. PlanetOut has spent the last three weeks in the
chat room warning users about the outbreak.

And their campaign is working, said Jeffrey Klausner, director of the Health
Department's sexually transmitted diseases division. The number of men who
visit city clinics for testing has doubled.

Eight men who met their recent sex partners in SFM4M tested positive for
syphilis. A ninth infected man said he met his partners on an Internet relay
chat room, or IRC.

Three of the San Francisco men also reported that they tested HIV positive,
Klausner said.

Although the number of cases is small so far, the implications are big.
Klausner said a syphilis outbreak could have a major impact on San
Francisco's gay community because the disease causes genital sores, which
increase the victim's likelihood of contracting and spreading HIV.

In the SFM4M chat room Wednesday, visitors discussed the Health Department's
campaign, the resulting publicity and the flood of homophobic on-screen
attacks.

"It's kinda sad that (the chat room) has that bad rep now and (the publicity)
really makes gay people look like dogs in heat," wrote one man who declined
to identify himself.

Tom Rielly, founder of PlanetOut, said that he isn't surprised by the
anti-gay messages now hitting the chat room. "But I don't buy into the
argument that because (the public health campaign) might shed an unfavorable
light on the gay community that you shouldn't talk about it all," Rielly
said.

Among Rielly's critics are David Pasquarelli of Act Up San Francisco, whose
group questions whether HIV causes AIDS. ACT UP placed an ad last week in the
Bay Area Reporter warning that the "syphilis scare is an anti-gay lie" and
that a handful of cases doesn't constitute an outbreak.

"Their alarmism is demonizing gay sex . . . ultimately fueling violence
against gay men," Pasquarelli said.

But Klausner defended his campaign. "The role of the Health Department is to
use information it has to protect the health of the public," Klausner said.
"We weigh very seriously the decisions to issue health alerts to medical
providers and to the community at large."

Cases of syphilis -- a bacterial infection easily treated with antibiotics
when detected early -- are at an all-time national low. In fact, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention targeted the disease for elimination.

In San Francisco, 17 cases of recent infection were reported during the first
six months of 1999, compared to 25 cases reported during the same period in
1998.

=====

ACT UP San Francisco
1884 Market Street * San Francisco, California 94102
Phone: (415) 864-6686 * Fax: (415) 864-6687 * www.actupsf.com