Posted by Editor on March 09, 2002
San Francisco Examiner
March 4, 2002
Front Page
Maniac
or Messenger?
By Tanya Pampalone
David Pasquarelli sits quietly, his hands folded in his lap. In his sunny lower Haight apartment, the young activist offers ice tea to his guests. He is soft-spoken and polite. He is on his best behavior.
He does not resemble the image of a man with 52 civil restraining orders, who stormed into meetings full of gay men dying of AIDS, knocking over chairs and pelting speakers with pills while reportedly shouting "Die faggots, die."
But this is Pasquarelli, the ACT UP San Francisco member who believes that HIV is not the cause of AIDS and who will go to almost any length to prove his opponents wrong.
The 34-year-old man with soft blue eyes and a shaved head finds it unbelievable that anyone would blindly accept what he calls the great HIV lie spewed by AIDS, Inc., that machine of nonprofits in the pocket of pharmaceutical companies that try to shove toxic pills down the throats of gay men and poor Africans.
For what he believes, he will face a jury in May on 11 felonies and seven misdemeanors, including stalking, harassment and criminal threats. He will have to defend the in-your-face tactics that he calls civil disobedience -- but District Attorney Terence Hallinan labels terrorism and a slew of local AIDS activists regard as violent, abusive and
outright dangerous behavior.
And yet as he sits there in
his apartment it is hard to picture the terrorist, the maniac, the
loose cannon who called public health officials, journalists and AIDS
researchers in the middle of the night and screamed unspeakable
obscenities, leaving his victims cowering in fear.
Growing up gay
This so-called menace to society grew up
in a leafy, middle-class Pittsburgh suburb, the son of a union labor
attorney and a hospital nurse. He was a bright kid who got good grades,
carried around a microscope and drew lots of pictures.
Because he was small and skinny, he was an easy target for kids' cruel
humor. During one three-week period in the third grade he was called
"faggot" and "pervert" every time he got on the school bus.
No matter. He got over it. He made lots of friends in high school,
joined the Botany Club and the school band, stayed away from drugs and
came home on time. He liked Boy George, Culture Club and Joan Crawford.
That was enough to get you picked on as a teenager in suburban
Pittsburgh. But even if Pasquarelli was a geek, he had his circle of
friends. Not the popular ones, mind you -- his friends were the
outsiders.
His younger sister, Andrea Pasquarelli,
remembers peering out of her bedroom window one night. Her brother had
come home late and was standing in the driveway crying. The windows on
her father's red sports car had been smashed.
She
wouldn't find out what really happened until years later. Some kids who
knew he was gay -- even though his family didn't -- had taken a
baseball bat to the car.
Sick and tired
We
have lunch at Queztal on Polk Street a few days after meeting at his
apartment. Pasquarelli has a smoothie, a spinach salad -- no nuts, he's
allergic -- and soup.
He is armed. His ammunition is
carefully organized newspaper clippings. There is the recent Rolling
Stone article which disputes AIDS statistics in Africa and the
Washington Monthly story where the Department of Public Health's
Jeffrey Klausner discusses quarantines for gay men who continually
insist on spreading HIV by not wearing condoms.
Klausner
later said he was misrepresented, but it was too late for Pasquarelli
and independent AIDS activist Michael Petrelis. The article sent them
into a phone-calling frenzy that would land them in jail for 72 days on
$1.1 million bail.
"Gay men are on the brink of
quarantine!" Pasquarelli declares.
But he can't put all
of his energy into that argument today. He has collapsed twice since
being released from jail two weeks earlier. He is exhausted and
malnourished and a recent blood test shows he's anemic. He felt fine
before all of this.
He says it's got nothing to do with
the fact that he is HIV positive. In fact, his stay in jail bolsters
his theory that it's not AIDS that's killing people -- it's
malnutrition, dehydration, stress, a poor environment and those
horrible toxic drugs.
It cannot be disputed that the
drugs have horrendous side effects. They can be seen on the faces and
worn bodies of men in the Castro. There are the hunchbacks, the
hollowed-out faces, the brittle bones and the heart attacks afflicting
men far too young. AIDS workers are well aware of this. But they also
know that many others might not have lived this long without these
drugs.
Pasquarelli doesn't buy it.
"I feel
confident that the dissidents are right and AIDS will just be seen as
another tragic chapter in the U.S. health policy," he says pointedly.
"HIV does not cause AIDS, the antibody test is flawed, and drugs like
AZT and protease inhibitors kill."
He is sick, he says,
but he'll get better. And to help him get better, he is starting to
take DNCB, a controversial photographic chemical that ACT UP S.F.
endorsed to boost the cellular immune system as a way to fight off AIDS
way back when they believed HIV was the cause of AIDS. The chemical is
seen as quackery by the mainstream AIDS establishment, but Pasquarelli
thinks it works.
He's not using it for HIV, however. He
doesn't believe in the virus, remember? He's taking it for its
immune-boosting capabilities, and he wants me to know he also is taking
vitamin supplements and eating healthy foods.
Acting up
The activism bug bit at Penn State University, where he
was a resident adviser in the school dorms and studied graphic design.
He got involved with the gay rights group on campus, but it wasn't
until he made it to Florida that activism really took hold.
It was the time of the Gulf War and AIDS, and activism was flaring
up on campuses across the country. Pasquarelli got a job as resident
director at a small conservative Catholic school just outside of Tampa,
Fla.
It was there he learned about ACT UP (AIDS Coalition
to Unleash Power), the in-your-face activist group started by Larry
Kramer that was rabble-rousing across the country, and he helped to
start a local chapter.
While he was interested in
furthering the AIDS cause, it was the propaganda and the demonstrations
that Pasquarelli found the most exciting.
"After the
first couple of actions, I was hooked," he says.
Don
Bentz, president of Pride Tampa Bay, remembers Pasquarelli from the
Florida days.
Bentz was impressed when Pasquarelli turned
in a proposal to update the local school board curriculum to include
instruction on sexually transmitted diseases. It was so detailed, so
organized. This was a bright guy headed places. But when the school
board was resistant to his plans, Bentz says, Pasquarelli snapped.
A group of ACT UP members dressed as skeletons, carried a fake
coffin into the next school board meeting and went wild. Then they
began pelting the school board members with unwrapped condoms. The
event made headlines, and Pasquarelli got a taste of big-time activism
and having his face in the papers.
"Instead of it being
about HIV and AIDS and prevention, everything became about protests and
how many times David could get on camera," Bentz says. "The message
was: I'm David Pasquarelli, I'm ACT UP, and I'm pissed."
In early 1993, Pasquarelli met Michael Bellefountaine, a long-time ACT
UP member, at a function in Florida where a Libertarian was trying to
garner support by touting the fact that his party believed that
homosexuality was a victimless crime.
Did he just say
homosexuality was a crime?
Pasquarelli was on the guy,
shouting him down. Bellefountaine joined in the chorus of fury, and
they became best friends. Six months later, they packed up and headed
for the gay mecca.
Back in Africa
David
Pasquarelli doesn't want you to see him angry. He doesn't want you to
see it in his eyes.
When you ask him about the stories in
South Africa about men raping virgins because traditional healers say
that is one way to cure AIDS, he averts his eyes.
He is
mad at me. He is simmering, somehow managing to cork his fury. How
could I buy into the lies? Am I that ignorant? Could I be so racist?
Could I be that stupid to believe that these people actually go to
sangomas, more commonly known in the West as witch doctors?
"That is one of the most egregious rumors that is being promoted by
the pharmaceutical industry and others to force Africans to feel
ashamed and push these drugs," he tells me, his voice shaking. "I think
it's totally unacceptable and it pains me to no end to hear these
stories repeated -- these notions that these black Africans are
sexually unrestrained and are spreading HIV, going to kooky witch
doctors. The West has done a number on Africa. I will never believe
it."
He just doesn't buy any of it. Pasquarelli is a true
believer.
S.F. here they come
Pasquarelli
and Bellefountaine had heard about the great feats of ACT UP San
Francisco, but by the time they got to The City, the group was small
and dysfunctional. It was an easy takeover.
Rebecca
Hensler, a member of the old ACT UP S.F., remembers when the boys from
Florida arrived. She recalls Pasquarelli's explosive temper.
"When he got frustrated in political debate, he would suddenly
start yelling and cursing," Hensler said. "It didn't look like it was
under his control."
The men attended meetings of ACT UP
S.F. and ACT UP Golden Gate, involving themselves in both groups,
trying to push through what they thought were good policies. But they
couldn't make headway, either within ACT UP or the larger AIDS
community. They were alienated from the get-go.
"We were
a problem from the day we walked into this town," Bellefountaine says.
"We were Johnny-come-latelies, we are obviously organized, we are on
the move, so, we were a problem. We needed to be neutralized, when we
could have just as easily been absorbed."
They became a
thorn in the side of the AIDS community. In the end, they stuck with
ACT UP S.F. and built up a group in their own image. They began to get
interested in alternative therapies and started to question the
toxicity levels of AIDS drugs such as AZT.
They stirred
up trouble everywhere they went, disrupting AIDS meetings all over
town, shouting at AIDS workers on the streets, dumping used cat litter
on the head of Pat Christen, executive director of the San Francisco
AIDS Foundation, and fake blood on researchers at a Vancouver AIDS
conference.
April 1, 1995
On April Fool's
Day in 1995, everything changed. That was the day that Pasquarelli
found out he was HIV positive.
Pasquarelli walked around
The City for three days, crying hysterically.
"I was not
promiscuous, I did not inject drugs," he says. "There was no indication
that I would test positive. I didn't understand the test."
So he went to work to figure it out, taking time off from ACT UP
S.F. He started reading dissident literature, including that of Peter
Duesberg, the Berkeley retrovirologist known for his theory that HIV is
not the cause of AIDS.
Equipped with his research,
Pasquarelli was ready to act up again, this time as a dissenter.
But is he violent?
"David Pasquarelli is
misguided, erratic, irrational and ultimately dangerous," says Michael
Lauro, a longtime AIDS activist.
Lauro is one of the
founding members of Aids Activists Against Violence and Lies, a local
group that was formed after ACT UP S.F. upset a Project Inform
discussion in April 2000 that landed several ACT UP members in court
and left Pasquarelli with three misdemeanors on his record. Those
counts are currently on appeal.
While Sam Pasquarelli
doesn't think much of his son's tactics -- it's not really his style of
communication -- or his son's stance on AIDS, David Pasquarelli's
father is certain about one thing. His son wouldn't hurt anyone.
"I can believe that he could get into a heated conversation,"
Sam Pasquarelli said. "But hurt somebody? Blow up a building? Not on
your life."
Only one activist formally accused
Pasquarelli of assault -- he was found innocent of the charges in court
-- but others say they endured years of verbal abuse that left them
living in fear. Pasquarelli maintains he would never be violent.
"I avoid violence like the plague," he said. "I don't like to
fight, I'm not an aggressive person."
Bentz of Tampa Bay
Pride, however, thinks Pasquarelli needs to be stopped.
"I'm surprised that he hasn't done something more violent," Bentz said.
"If somebody doesn't do something to stop him, he is going to hurt
somebody."
Back at the space
Bellefountaine
has just made himself some potato latkes and is settling into a busy
day.
It is Client Appreciation Day at "the space," the
ACT UP S.F. office and medical marijuana dispensary on the edge of the
Castro, where pot is sold to people with HIV. Their 1,400-client base
will get 20 percent off today. The green bud business generates upwards
of $1.2 million a year, helping to fund ACT UP S.F. activities.
He takes some time out. I ask if he is worried about his best
friend's health.
He'll get better soon, says
Bellefountaine. He just needs some rest and good food to recuperate
from being in jail. It's not what you think.
"People get
sick and die, and they don't have HIV," says the 37-year-old, who has
lymphoma. "If David were to die tomorrow, I would want an autopsy."
Along with his friend, he will never, ever believe the
lie.
But Pasquarelli is rethinking some things. He wants
to settle down with this boyfriend, Steve Huggins, maybe apply to law
school.
"Maybe it is time for a tactical change," he
muses. "It was not my intention to frighten anybody."
That is difficult to believe. Especially if you hear some of the tapes
of his voice left on answering machines of AIDS workers. They reveal a
Pasquarelli sharp and clear and full of vehemence.
"Listen you syphilitic scumbag, you're not going to put homosexuals in
cages in this town," one message screeches, "so you and your little dog
better wake up and better make sure the quarantine by Jeffrey Klausner
does not become the political reality of San Francisco if you want to
walk the streets."
Pasquarelli says he's just a man who
is passionate about what he believes and wants the world to understand
his truth.
"I can't bite my tongue, and I can't keep my
mouth shut," he says. "That's my number one problem -- or blessing."
A jury will have to decide.
Email Tanya
Pampalone at
tpamplone@sfexaminer.com
-------------------------
Alternate views
OK
KUDOS to you for the article "Maniac or Messenger" (The Examiner, March 4). One of the major reasons for the continuing debate and survival of the HIV paradigm is the dismal job that the mainstream media has done in covering the category of diseases called AIDS for over 20 years. You deserve credit for bucking this trend by airing the views of dissidents like David Pasquarelli.
David's experience with HIV mirrors mine and that of many others who have refused to buy into the hysterical death propaganda and bad science spewed by vested AIDS interests.
Unlike too many gullible victims of the modern
medicine machine, we have educated ourselves and continue to thrive in
spite of being branded "denialists," "exceptions," "examples of the
delayed virus" and other nonsense.
Meanwhile, I will
continue running marathons and consuming a primarily raw vegan diet
while scoffing at all the doomsday garbage flowing from those with a
dependency on victims.
Jerry McPherson
Oakland