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

Outraged by U.S. government indifference to the escalating AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico, a dozen AIDS activists stopped traffic for half an hour in downtown Manhattan today to demand immediate federal oversight of Puerto Rico’s AIDS funding. All twelve were arrested at the intersection of Broadway and Worth streets, as a raucous crowd of about 75 supporters chanted “Puerto Rico AIDS Crisis, Save Lives Now.”

* 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