Friction Continues Between Bernie Sanders And AIDS Activists

Veteran activist Pete Staley said he's feeling "used and abused" by Sanders' campaign.
From: NewNowNext

 There’s been bad blood between Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and HIV/AIDS activists ever since the Vermont Senator canceled a meeting without explanation earlier this month.

 But things actually got worse once Sanders did meet with activists, and then suggested the group supported an initiative from the controversial AIDS Healtcare Foundation to lower prices for taxpayer-supported AIDS treatments.

Activist Peter Staley claim no such agreement was reached, and in fact many AIDS advocates worry the plan would drive up the costs of medication. They also worry about the involvement of AHF President Michael Weinstein, who has attacked PrEP as a “party drug.”

Staley has issued a statement on Facebook voicing his frustrations.

"Feeling used and abused by the Sanders campaign right now. They just issued a press release making it sound like our meeting was about his endorsement of AHF’s drug pricing ballot initiative in CA. Senator Sanders never brought the issue [of the California initiative] up during our meeting. WE brought it up near the end, only to tell him that we had been flooded with messages from all the leading AIDS organizations in CA with deep concerns about AHF’s initiative — they are worried it could actually negatively impact access to AIDS drugs.

Those groups have tried to reach the campaign with these concerns but had hit a brick wall.

We asked Sanders to designate someone in his campaign to talk with these groups, and he agreed to this. WE DID NOT ENDORSE AHF’S INITIATIVE.

His campaign should not have issued a press release implying this was a major topic of discussion at the meeting, and that there was general agreement on the Senator’s position on this. Anything but."

Sanders’ policy director, Warren Gunnels, then turned around and dismissed the activists as hypocrites who “made a fortune from big drug companies” in a tweet that has since been deleted.

We hope the conflict can be resolved soon—Sanders has a long history of supporting LGBT rights and laid out a multi-prong plan on his campaign site to address the HIV epidemic in America