"Open
Chelsea, make it quick, New York City is getting sick," ACT
UP chanted at their protest over the closure of the Chelsea
STD today at City Hall, just off the
heels of the governor's calls
for an end to the AIDS epidemic. The blueprint calls for halting the growth of the epidemic through early testing, treatment, and structural supports, including housing. The closure of the Chelsea clinic in the center of a neighborhood grappling with high rates of syphilis and HIV seems to fly in face of this plan. ACT UP was there to remind everyone of this.
I heard about the demonstration on the ACT UP
list serve, where Jim Eigo wrote:
“I ACT UP so the next generation will be free
of HIV!”
Now try your own! (And
if you’d like, share them with the rest of us.)
I was thinking, I ACT UP because pleasure is a resource. Joy overlaps with justice. Fuck safe! Shoot Clean!
For ACT UP, HIV prevention has
always involved simple doses of access to information, frank
discussion about sex, knowledge about routes of transmission, early treatment,
harm reduction and a sex positive, anti-prohibitive queer politics.
In this way, it is really
a way of looking at the world. Its about how we connect safer promiscuity with prevention,
the stories we share as we build community.
When Sarah Schulman interviewed me a few weeks ago about ACT UP, we
talked about many things, but the point I reflected on was this point: ACT UP is
discourse. Over the decades, it has
involved sitting on a bus trip to an AIDS demo in DC reading Sarah Schulman’s
People in Trouble, about the ins and outs of the struggle or David Feinberg’s Queer and Loathing, recalling the early
days of AIDS as both funny and horrifying, Situation Normal, Completely Fucked
up. Its a narrative about getting drugs into bodies across the globe
and then acting up to make it happen.
These stories are reality creating machines. They are also spaces which allow us to
laugh and revel in the messy spaces between friends and losses, connection and
separation, love, lust and the queer spaces in between. Its about speaking up,
calling out those in power with gusto and abandon, raging for what is right
with hope, anger, humor, sexuality, care and delicious defiance.
It felt like that today,
passing the police and fire department having their own memorial session, on the
way to ACT UP.
People were marching when I arrived across from city hall park.
Jim Eigo and I talked about the Sarah Schulman
interview I had just completed, thinking about the ways the group continues. (For the record, people like Jennifer Flynn,
Eustacia Smith, Sharonann Lynch, Julie Davids, Asia Russell and countless other
queer women should be interviewed, probably way before my interview is posted. I’m honored to have been a small part of this
movement of the last twenty two years. But many have done much more than my small gestures at demonstrations and blogs).
More than history, today, there are
wonderful people doing amazing work in the group. And as ACT UP veteran Kate Barnhart put it
after a transgender client of hers was diagnosed with both advanced AIDS and cancer, crying on her shoulder, its
hard to think of this epidemic as anything near over.
“Its not as
if what we are doing today is inconsequential,” noted Eigo. “The Chelsea Clinic had 20,000 visits a year.” Yet, now it has closed. The question is how can the city fill
the gap in those 20,000 visits?
Where do people go now that there
is no longer a free government clinic, wondered Eigo, suggesting the city had
effectively blown a hole in the safety net preventing new infections. “This is a place where young men of color and
transgender women go, especially after they may have had a risky encounter.
These are the people we want to access.
This is a place people go to,” he continued, noting that now there is a small print out at
the clinic door saying closed, with the address for a clinic 70 blocks
away. “How many of these people would be
getting prep or post exposure prophylaxis?
I’m afraid we are going to lose these people,” Eigo continued, pointed
to the $500,000 it costs the city every time someone tests positive for
HIV. Many are not going get prep or pep.
Instead he worried they will be “living with an infection that could
have been prevented.” The city should be opening more clinics not closing them argued Eigo especially if they are serious about the blueprint to
end the epidemic. “In more ways than
I can imagine, this is gumming up the works.”
Jim Eigo and Benjamin Shepard, Eigo's #1 fan. |
“The mayor says shut down, we say ACT UP!” screamed those on picket line.
“We say blow me,” noted another gentleman under his
breath. He would not go on the record
for this blog.
“I’m outraged,” noted Carlos Valentin, who lives on
34th street and 9th in Chelsea. “There’s a sign on the
door that says go to Riverside. That’s the
closest thing. You see people wondering where
that is,” he continued referring to the 100th Street and Amsterdam address
for the clinic. “We live in a community where STD rates are high.”
Carlos Valentin |
“Health care is a right. Open Chelsea Clinic, ACT UP!” screamed the
crowd.
Walking through the picket line, I ran into Dan
Beal, the iconic YIPPIE and Ibogaine activist, carrying a sign declaring, “Cure
the Sick.” We talked about his plans to
open an ibogaine clinic in Kabul Afghanistan. I
told him it was great to see him.
I was glad to see him out of jail.
His interview is part of the first chapter of my study of play and activism,
Play, Creativity and Social Movements.
Shepard, Beal, and his sign. |
“I was dead for three minutes but they brought me
back,” noted Beal. “I don’t give up,
just because I’ve been arrested, locked up, gone to prison, and died, I do not
give up.”
As the rally was ending, Jim Eigo spoke.
“Its almost impossible to under emphasize the
importance of STD clinics in the fight against HIV,” he explained, questioning the
New York Department of Health’s commitment to their campaign, New York Knows,
their new testing initiative. “To
knock out the central clinic, the hub of care in a gay neighborhood, a
destination for gay men and trans women,
is beyond belief.”
“ACT UP, fight back, END AIDS!” the group screamed,
over and over.
James Krellenstein
followed comparing the closure of the clinic to the treatment Dr Craig Spencer when he tested positive
for Ebola last fall. According to some
estimates the city spent $4.5 million dollars on his treatment, using every resource in the book. Yet, a clinic which effectively prevents the spread of HIV and other infections was closed over budget constraints. “We will not be silent when queer bodies are
made subordinate to budget decisions,” he followed.
James Krellenstein |
“Embarrassment is not enough,” noted Andrew Velez. “We need to inspire action.”
Asked what everyone can do, Velez called for
everyone to call their representatives to ask them to reopen the clinic and to
come to the next ACT UP meeting.
Finishing the zap, I thanked everyone who keeps the
group going, greeting veterans and newbies, the students from Purdue
University who took part in the action.
It’s a pleasure to see so many friends from ACT UP
at the demo, who’ve been there through the years as well as those just acting up.
What are you reading Jim, I asked as we left. He pointed to Shakespeare and we talked about
the Tempest.
ACT UP has been dealing with this storm for years
now, helping us create a new world through our actions and words, research and
action, and commitment to creating a human way to treat the sick, prevent
future infections, and support a more colorful, queerer world along the way. My books and Rebel Friendships have always been inspired by the group.
ACT UP
provided background on the zap in their press release.
In March of
2015, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)
shuttered the Chelsea STD clinic for multiyear renovations, without any prior
notice or any realistic plan to remedy the grave public health consequences of
this action. Conservative estimates project that, unless significant action is
taken, the continued closure of the Chelsea clinic will result in tens of
additional New Yorkers becoming infected with HIV each year, at a lifetime cost
to the taxpayer of at least $4.45 million per year of clinic closure. ACT UP/New
York will be leading a large protest at noon on the west side of City Hall to
demand that DOHMH and the de Blasio Administration immediately and
transparently implement solutions that will fully make up for lost testing and
treatment capacity caused by the clinic closure. Chelsea remains the epicenter
of the syphilis and HIV epidemics in the New York City, with the highest
syphilis diagnosis rate in the nation and the highest HIV diagnosis rate in the
city. The Chelsea clinic identified the highest number of early HIV
infections—the most infectious stage of HIV infection—of any clinic within the
five boroughs and represents nearly a quarter of the city’s STD testing and
treatment capacity. Diagnosis and treatment of HIV and other STIs are one of
the most effective methods of slowing the spread of these diseases.
"How many New Yorkers will be lost to testing
because of this poorly planned clinic closing?" asked veteran ACT UP
member Jim Eigo. "How many of them will become HIV positive? How many
forward infections will this fuel? Every HIV infection costs New York about
half a million dollars, and the cost to the New Yorker who will now have to
live with a lifetime infection is incalculable."
The DOHMH and Mayor’s Office have known for over
eight years that the clinic was going to close, yet no plans existed to make up
for the services lost to the community. Activists find the contrast between the
response to the ongoing syphilis and HIV emergencies—in which thousands of New
Yorkers become newly infected each year—and the DOHMH’s response to the single
Ebola case in late 2014, disturbing. The DOHMH spent over $4.5 million on Ebola
in late 2014, yet refuses to publicly commit to any money to help fill the
public health gaps left by the closure of the city’s busiest HIV and STD
clinic.
“This is public health malpractice,” said James
Krellenstein, a founding member of ACT UP NY’s Prevention Working Group, “to
shut down the city’s leading point of care for the most vulnerable population
without any real alternative is an egregious act that will inevitably result in
more LGBT New Yorkers becoming infected with HIV and other sexually transmitted
infections.”
In meetings
with activists over the past month, DOHMH officials, including STD director Dr.
Susan Blank and Communicable Disease Chief Dr. Jay Varma, have failed to
account for the lack of adequate planning and the negative public health
consequences of the clinic closure.
“New York
AIDS activists have been bewildered and disappointed by DOHMH’s epic
incompetence regarding the sudden closure of the Chelsea STD Clinic,” said Mark
Harrington, a long time ACT UP/New York Member and executive director of the
Treatment Action Group (TAG). “DOHMH had over eight years to plan for this
renovation, but closed the clinic abruptly and without notice to the community.
We will be watching their actions closely to ensure that acceptable solutions
are in place by Gay Pride Week, less than a month away.”
ACT UP/New York demands that the city and the de
Blasio administration immediately: ● Provide sufficient funding for expanded
HIV/STD testing and treatment at neighborhood clinics ● Build an inexpensive,
prefabricated temporary clinic on the Chelsea STD site that will have capacity
equal to the original clinic. ● Provide funds to expedite the renovations of
the shuttered clinic ● Appoint a community board to oversee the restoration of
testing and prevention services to Chelsea and the renovation of the Chelsea
STD Clinic
NEW YORK CITY CLOSES THE CHELSEA STD CLINIC, FEEDING
THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IT PROMISED TO END! nnn • In New York City, Chelsea has the
highest rate of new infections for HIV and syphilis. • Last year 10,000 New
Yorkers came to the Chelsea STD Clinic for free and confidential testing for
HIV and STDs, and for a range of prevention services. Run by the Department of
Health & Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), the Clinic could also link New Yorkers to
long-term healthcare. • But on March 21, 2015, without warning the community,
New York City shut the Clinic down for renovations. The nearest city STD clinic
is now more than 70 blocks away. • Spurred by community anger, the City has
deployed mobile testing vans locally and increased testing capacity at
community organizations. By the end of summer it hopes to offer rapid HIV
testing at the Clinic site and referrals to local clinics for more sensitive
testing and other services. • But none of the remedies that the City has
proposed will serve as many New Yorkers with the free services the Clinic
offered. ACT UP ASKS: • How much will the closing of the Chelsea STD Clinic
cost? • How many New Yorkers will be lost to testing because of this poorly
planned clinic closing? • How many New Yorkers who need emergency Post-Exposure
Prophylaxis (PEP) for possible exposure to HIV will not get it? How many of
them will become HIV positive? • How many acute HIV infections will go
undiagnosed? How many forward infections will this fuel? • Every HIV infection
costs New York about half a million dollars, and the cost to the New Yorker who
will now have to live with a lifetime infection is incalculable. ACT UP
DEMANDS: • The City needs to provide all possible support for expanded testing
and prevention services at neighborhood clinics and community organizations! •
An inexpensive, pre-fabricated unit on the Clinic site could replace most of
the lost services for most of the people the shuttered Clinic once served. The
City should build it right away! • Renovation on the shuttered Clinic has yet
to begin. Asbestos on the site threatens further delays. The City needs to do
everything in its power to renovate the Clinic ahead of schedule! • City
planning for the Clinic renovation has been poor. Potential remedies involve
many unknowns. The City needs to appoint a community board to oversee the
restoration of testing and prevention services to Chelsea and the renovation of
the Chelsea STD Clinic! To End the AIDS Epidemic, New York City will have to
expand the City’s HIV and STD Testing and Prevention Services, not cut them!
You're a quick worker, Ben! Thanks so much for the coverage & the pics. Such great shots of some of my favorite activists--Nanette Kazaoka, Nancy Duncan, John Riley, Tim Lunceford...& all our new friends from Purdue.
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