Torruella (in orange hat) and Eddie Fukui participate in the Puerto Rican Rum Party

It was a black-tie affair inside the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration holiday party at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night, but many guests, most of whom were Puerto Rican or have business dealings with Puerto Rico, were red with embarrassment. That’s because as they walked into the swank bash, they had to walk a gauntlet of 16 protestors chanting “Puerto Rico AIDS Crisis, Save Lives Now!” and distributing fliers explaining that, despite more than $50 million in federal funding, basic services aren’t getting to the island’s people living with HIV/AIDS.

About an hour into the protest, the activists, who came from Housing Works, D.C. Fights Back, Campaign to End AIDS, ACT UP Philadelphia, the Students Global AIDS Coalition and George Washington University dumped out two bottles of rum—the party was sponsored by Rums of Puerto Rico—into a bucket bearing the logo that has come to represent their struggle: a Puerto Rican flag merged with a menacing skull. The three-hour picket and “rum party” took place under the wary gaze of several security guards and one policeman, though it was entirely legal.

The catastrophe in Puerto Rico has left people without medication and support services and lacking crucial prevention. The protestors’ demands included oversight by the Human Resources and Services Administration, an investigation into the mismanagement and fraud that has led to a crippling of Puerto Rico’s AIDS health care infrastructure and immediate action to provide prevention tools to IV drug users. IV drug users account for the majority of new infections in the commonwealth. More than 30,000 people in Puerto Rico have HIV/AIDS, and more than 19,000 Puerto Ricans have died from AIDS.

He moves in mysterious ways…

At the demo, the loud chanting and sight of the protesters drew stares from inside the party and interest from passersby, particularly from a faux-celeb—the impersonator of U2 lead singer Bono. The professional-Bono impersonator listened carefully to Housing Works legislative counsel Michael Kink, who filled him in on the details of Puerto Rico’s crisis.

“I am very aware of what’s happening all over the world and I encourage what you all are doing,” “Bono” told the Update.

While other guests were salsa dancing, National Minority AIDS Council Assistant Director of Government Relations and Public Policy James Albino distributed protest fliers inside the party prompting party organizers to tail him the entire evening. “I put fliers in the bathrooms, by coat check and everywhere I went people were reading them,” Albino said. As partiers left the party around 9pm, some applauded the protesters actions while others acknowledged the similarity to the AIDS crisis in another U.S. territory with no Congressional representation: D.C., where one in 20 people is living with HIV/AIDS.

Kink briefs fake-Bono on the Puerto Rico AIDS crisis

One party guest refused to take a flier from activist Rafael Torruella, saying, “I give money to that,” referring to AIDS.

“But do you know where your money is going?” Torruella replied.

“Probably not,” the man acknowledged, as he hurried off.

Torruella, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, said that Puerto Ricans in the U.S. needed to take an active role in ending the island’s AIDS crisis. “It’s important to keep pressure going on multiple sectors of society, and to let the government and elites of Puerto Rico know they’re not immune from scrutiny and that we are talking to them,” said Torruella, who arrived in D.C. on a van from New York with a handful of Housing Works employees and Omar Polo, an HIV-positive visitor from the Dominican Republic who was learning about AIDS activism in the U.S.

Everyone who protested was passionate that the U.S. take Puerto Rico’s AIDS crisis seriously. “The government here needs to be monitoring the money and know where it is going,” said Alexis Semidey, 24, an HIV-positive Puerto Rican, who is a member of ACT UP Philadelphia.

Keeping up the pressure

Various types of activist pressure have been applied over the past few months: phone zaps of the offices of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt (who oversees HRSA), Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini-Padilla, and a die-in at HRSA’s Federal Building offices in New York. Twelve protesters were arrested at that action for stopping traffic. HRSA has said that Puerto Rico must voluntarily cede control of its AIDS funding, but advocates say HRSA has the power to cut off funding that’s being misspent.

“Today’s protest makes me want to be more radical and to hold leaders accountable when I go home,” said Polo, 24, and president of Sovisida, an AIDS organization in the Dominican Republic.

Read the Update next week for news on HRSA’s most recent site visit to Puerto Rico.

Link to Gallery of Images

AIDS activists and Washington, D.C.-area students will be chanting “Puerto Rico AIDS Crisis, Save Lives Now” and handing out informational fliers at a vociferous legal picket outside the “Friends of Puerto Rico” Holiday Reception on December 12 at the National Geographic Society at 1145 17th St. NW from 6 pm to 9 pm. (This information is embargoed until 6pm on December 12)

The holiday party is being thrown by the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration and is sponsored by Rums of Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican Tourism Bureau. The picket is the latest in a series of activist measures intended to pressure the Puerto Rican government into taking immediate action to address the island’s escalating AIDS crisis.

Organizations participating in the picket include D.C. Fights Back (dcfightsback.org), the Campaign to End AIDS (c2ea.org), Housing Works (housingworks.org), ACT UP Philadelphia (http://www.critpath.org/actup/), Latino Commission on AIDS (latinoaids.org) and student groups from American, Howard and George Washington Universities.

The groups picketing demand immediate federal control of AIDS funding in Puerto Rico; an independent authority to investigate the mismanagement and come up with a plan to end it; and immediate action to provide HIV prevention tools to IV drug users, who account for the majority of new infections in Puerto Rico. The picket follows a series of grassroots events in November with the same goals, including a civil disobedience action outside the Federal Building in New York City and phone and fax zaps of the offices of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini-Padilla.

More than 30,000 people in Puerto Rico have HIV/AIDS, and more than 19,000 Puerto Ricans have died from AIDS. Since 2006, AIDS services and treatment in Puerto Rico have been crippled by neglect and criminal activity.

• Audit after audit by the federal government of millions in U.S. tax dollars has documented Puerto Rico’s failure to provide basic care to people with HIV/AIDS.

• In December, the FBI raided four San Juan Health Department offices, freezing millions in U.S. Ryan White CARE Act funds intended to help people with HIV/AIDS.

• The Puerto Rican Health Department claims there is no longer an AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting list for medications, but advocates have documented hundreds of people who are still waiting to receive medications on which their lives depend.

• The U.S. Office of the Inspector General has recently said that the Puerto Rican Department of Health may have to return $28 million in federal AIDS funding due to mismanagement.

HHS Secretary Leavitt has the power to instruct the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the division of HHS that oversees HIV/AIDS in all U.S. states and territories, to take over the dispersal of millions in Ryan White CARE Act funds in Puerto Rico. HRSA has taken such action in U.S cities such as Washington, D.C, Baltimore and Orlando. In response to last month’s protest in New York City, HRSA has said that the Puerto Rican government must voluntarily give up control of its AIDS funding, but in the past HRSA has threatened to cut off funding to cities that refused to do so.

To learn more, visit The New York Times and the Housing Works AIDS Issues Update for in-depth articles about the HIV/AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico.

HOUSING WORKS is dedicated to fighting the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness. We are the largest grassroots AIDS organization in the U.S. and the largest minority-controlled AIDS organization in the U.S. We provide housing, medical care, job training, case management, HIV prevention, counseling and testing, and other services to low-income and homeless New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Activists “Die-In” to Save Lives in Puerto Rico

Activists, people living with HIV and employees of the New York-based AIDS service organization Housing Works convened earlier today, November 14, in Foley Square in downtown Manhattan to call for immediate federal control of Puerto Rico’s AIDS funding. Other attending organizations included CitiWide Harm Reduction, Unidos Danole Cara al Sida (UDCAS) NY and the Washington Heights CORNER Project.

The group held a press conference—which included speeches by Housing Works employees Tamara Oyola-Santiago and Marcelo Vanegas, among others—followed immediately by a march to the intersection of Broadway and Worth street, where a dozen protesters chanted “Puerto Rico AIDS Crisis: Save Lives Now!” before police intervened 20 minutes later. Protesters lay down in the middle of the street in a “die in,” requiring two dozen police officers to remove and arrest them. The group was released from custody roughly two hours later.

Fraudulent government activity, corruption and complacency have led to a noted lack of HIV/AIDS care in the U.S. commonwealth territory. While Puerto Rico received $58.4 million in Ryan White CARE Act funding last year, distribution to groups servicing the island’s 30,000 positive people has been slow.

Last December, the FBI, the IRS and the Human Services Office of the Inspector General confiscated thousands of files from the offices of Puerto Rico’s AIDS organizations and froze millions of dollars in Ryan White CARE Act Title I funds. In addition, hundreds wait for medication despite claims by the health department that there is no longer an AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) waiting list.

Today’s action was preceded yesterday by a “phone zap” aimed at Puerto Rican Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila and San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini Padilla in order to draw attention to Puerto Rico’s poor management of AIDS funds. Activists with Housing Works, the Latino Commission on AIDS, the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, UDCAS NY and UDCAS Puerto Rico participated in the zap, keeping phones ringing to ensure the attention of the two leaders.

For updates on this and other Housing Works actions, visit hwupdate.org.  POZ Link

Nueva York — Doce manifestantes fueron arrestados ayer por paralizar el tránsito en la intersección de las calles Worth y Broadway, en el Bajo Manhattan, como parte de un acto de desobediencia civil para llamar la atención sobre la crisis de VIH/SIDA en Puerto Rico.

Un nutrido grupo de más de cien personas, portando banderas de Puerto Rico y Estados Unidos, marchó desde Foley Square gritando: “Hay que salvar vidas en Puerto Rico”. Al llegar a la mencionada intersección, 12 de ellos se acostaron a lo largo del cruce peatonal, causando cuadra tras cuadra de tráfico en la Broadway.

En un lapso de 10 minutos, más de veinte policías descendieron sobre la escena desde toda dirección. Llegaron en patrulleros, montados a caballo y con perros. Cuando los 12 desobedientes se negaron a mover, la policía se los llevó uno por uno en medio del aplauso de los otros manifestantes. La protesta fue organizada por una coalición de organizaciones que incluye a Housing Works, UDCAS New York y CitiWide Harm Reduction. Este grupo exigió que el Departamento de Salud de Estados Unidos tome control inmediato de los fondos Ryan White, otorgados al municipio de San Juan y al Departamento Estatal de Salud para asistir a pacientes con VIH/SIDA.

“Desde el 2006, los servicios y los tratamientos para el VIH/SIDA se han visto severamente afectados en Puerto Rico por mal manejo de fondos y fraude”, dijeron los organizadores.

En diciembre del año pasado, el FBI allanó varias oficinas del Departamento Estatal de Salud de Puerto Rico como parte de una investigación de corrupción que sigue pendiente.

“Estamos muy preocupados por esta situación, pero no podemos tomar control de los fondos. Le hemos pedido a las autoridades en Puerto Rico que accedan voluntariamente a nombrar a un intermediario fiscal, como se ha hecho en otra ciudades como Washington DC, pero no aceptaron”, indicó Tina Cheatham, portavoz de la Administración de Recursos y Servicios de Salud de Estados Unidos, agencia que supervisa el programa Ryan White.

De acuerdo a cifras del Centro de Control de Enfermedades, unas 30 mil personas actualmente viven con VIH/SIDA en la isla. Más de 19 mil han muerto a causa de este mal.

A juicio de Ramón Alejandro Pabón, portavoz del municipio de San Juan, se está haciendo todo lo posible por ayudar a los pacientes. “El alcalde Jorge Santini se está asegurando que los fondos lleguen a los 2,150 pacientes que servimos a través de nuestro programa Más Salud”, señaló.

El municipio ha recibido 12 millones de dólares en fondos Ryan White para el año fiscal 2007, mientras que al Departamento Estatal de Salud se la han otorgado $35 millones.

“No es justo que la gente se esté muriendo por la vulgar y asquerosa corrupción que hay en el gobierno puertorriqueño. Los pacientes esperan y esperan para que les den medicamentos, mientras ellos se llenan los bolsillos con el dinero”, dijo Amy Vélez, una de las arrestadas por desobediencia civil, antes de ser trasladada al cuartel de policía.

Los doce detenidos fueron puestos en libertad después de ser acusados de atentar contra el orden público y bloquear el tránsito vehicular.

humberto.garcia@eldiariony.com

Link to El Dario Online

At a press conference preceding the traffic-stopping protest, activists demanded immediate federal control of AIDS funding in Puerto Rico in order to get medical care and HIV prevention to those in need. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has the power to instruct the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the division of HHS that oversees HIV/AIDS in all U.S. states and territories, to take over the dispersal of millions in Ryan White CARE Act funds in Puerto Rico. HRSA has taken such action in U.S cities such as Washington, D.C, Baltimore and Orlando. So far HRSA has refused to get involved in Puerto Rico.

Activists also want an independent authority to investigate the mismanagement of Puerto Rican AIDS dollars and a plan to end it and immediate action to provide HIV prevention tools to IV drug users, who account for the majority of new infections in Puerto Rico.

Housing Works, UDCAS New York, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Harm Reduction Coalition, New York City AIDS Housing Network, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Washington Heights CORNER Project and ACT UP Philly all endorsed the protest and press conference.

Today’s action in New York was only one of various efforts to put pressure on the federal government. On Tuesday, November 13 Housing Works, the Latino Commission on AIDS, the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, UDCAS NY and UDCAS Puerto Rico collaborated on a phone zap targeting Puerto Rican Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and San Juan City Mayor, Jorge Santini Padilla.

More than 30,000 people in Puerto Rico have HIV/AIDS, and more than 19,000 Puerto Ricans have died from AIDS-related causes.

To learn more, visit The New York Times Link and the Housing Works AIDS Issues Update for in-depth articles about the HIV/AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico.

HOUSING WORKS is dedicated to fighting the twin crises of HIV/AIDS and homelessness. We are the largest grassroots AIDS organization in the U.S. and the largest minority-controlled AIDS organization in the U.S. We provide housing, medical care, job training, case management, HIV prevention, counseling and testing, and other services to low-income and homeless New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Please support AIDS Programs of the National Minority AIDS Council CFC #10557 Link

Link to New York Times Article

Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá and San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini are responsible for the HIV/AIDS health crisis in Puerto Rico:

*   The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the City of San Juan have grossly misspent Federal Ryan White dollars.

*   Audit after audit of Ryan White CARE Act expenditures in Puerto Rico have found mismanagement, fraud, and failure to provide basic lifesaving care.

*   As a result, new HIV infections, new AIDS diagnoses and deaths from AIDS in Puerto Rico are disproportionately high and getting higher.

*   Many people have no access to AIDS medications, many AIDS service organizations have curtailed or shut down services, and many employees of AIDS services organizations have gone months without pay.

HIV/AIDS advocates, Puerto Rican activists and their allies have called repeatedly for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the City of San Juan to do their job.

Now it’s time for you to demand action that could save lives. It is time to tell Santini and Acevedo Vilá to act now to save lives and end the AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico.

(1) Call Puerto Rico Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá toll-free at 888-802-1207

(2) Call San Juan Mayor Jorge Santini-Padilla toll-free at 866-802-0640 (ask for the Mayor at extension 3000)

Tell them:

“Long term survivors, veterans of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, people with AIDS are dying in Puerto Rico because you haven’t taken action to help them. We need action for change:

*   Stop covering up and allow an immediate federal receivership for AIDS funding in Puerto Rico to ensure medical care and HIV prevention for people who don’t have it.

*   Conduct a full needs assessment of the patients, community based organizations, treatment and prevention education programs, to ascertain the real situation in Puerto Rico. If needed, declare the need for more federal funding under a receivership program.

*   Allow an independent authority to investigate the mismanagement and come up with a plan to end it.

*   Take immediate action to provide HIV prevention tools to IV drug users and empowerment efforts to fight stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS.

FAX ZAP TOO! You can also fax the Governor at 787-724-6942 and the Mayor at 787-725-5674 – download this document [link to PDF] on the Puerto Rico AIDS crisis and fax away!

This action created and supported by the Campaign to End AIDS, the National Minority AIDS Council, Unid@s Dandole Cara al SIDA Puerto Rico and Unid@s Dandole Cara al SIDA New York, Latino Commission on AIDS (need to insert hyperlink) – it’s www.latinoaids.org, and is an affiliated project of the Prevention Justice Mobilization [link www.preventionjustice.org].

To get involved contact activists on the front line:

WEB: unidosdandolecaraalsida.homestead.com

EMAIL: udcas-pr-home-chapter@googlegroups.com

PHONE: James Albino, NMAC: 202-234-5120 X303

* There are 3,927,776 people living on the Island of Puerto Rico.1

* 29,092 cumulative AIDS cases of persons of all ages have been reported from the beginning of the epidemic through 2005.2

* In 2005, there were 1,033 new AIDS cases reported on the Island.2 Ranked 10th highest in the United States.

* There is an estimated 10,822 persons living with AIDS as reported in 2005. 2

* Puerto Rico has the SECOND HIGHEST death rate due to AIDS in the U.S. 2

* 49.5% of HIV transmissions are through Injection Drug Use 2, however there are very limited needle exchange programs available throughout the island.

THE CRISIS

* People with AIDS in Puerto Rico have had to endure mismanagement and outright fraud in their ability to access HIV services for over 15 years.

* Puerto Rico does not receive Medicaid. This creates a shortage in health care resources for the Island as well for administrative infrastructure for the Department of Health.

* There is a waiting list of people waiting to be enrolled in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. There is also a waiting list of people who are already enrolled in Puerto Rico’s ADAP program but are waiting for medicines and suffer from frequent interruptions in pharmacy access or regularly receive incomplete prescriptions (2 but not 4 of the drugs prescribed)

THE SOLUTION

1. The government needs to contract with a third party non-profit to manage the Federal funds.

2. There needs to be immediate funds made available from the federal government and the government of Puerto Rico to provide medicines and care.

3. Third, there need to be Congressional oversight hearings and fact-finding about what led to the current crisis and what the needed solutions are.

1 U.S. Census Data 2006

2 The Henry Kaiser Family Foundation, www.statehealthfacts.org