Aids/HIV Activist, Peter Staley:"Sad attack from @BernieSanders campaign. (HRC GP)

[Her Sister]

https://twitter.com/peterstaley

Peter Staley ?@peterstaley 10h10 hours ago
Sad attack from @BernieSanders campaign. Can they help me find this "fortune" they mentioned?

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Peter Staley ?@peterstaley 20m20 minutes ago
My 5 most recent posts slamming Gilead, even though I'm on their payroll according to the @BernieSanders campaign
https://www.facebook.com/peterstaley/posts/10209786273073015 …
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Peter Staley ?@peterstaley 11h11 hours ago
Sanders campaign attacks me personally. FACT: I'm a volunteer AIDS activist that lives on savings (NO ONE PAYS ME)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209785927224369&set=a.1191034335491.2028973.1217362611&type=3&theater …
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Peter Staley ?@peterstaley 16h16 hours ago
CA HIV/AIDS Leaders statement regarding Senator @BernieSanders Support of CA Drug Price Relief Act
http://www.projectinform.org/uncategorized/ca-hivaids-leaders-statement-regarding-senator-sanders-support-of-ca-drug-price-relief-act/ …
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Peter Staley ?@peterstaley 17h17 hours ago
An Open Letter to Sen. @BernieSanders Challenging the Characterization of Meeting with HIV/AIDS Activists
http://www.housingworks.org/news-press/detail/an-open-letter-to-sen.-sanders-challenging-the-characterization-of-meeting …
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An Open Letter to Sen. Sanders Challenging the Characterization of Meeting with HIV/AIDS Activists

May 27, 2016

Dear Senator Sanders:

We are grateful that you took time to sit with us this week to discuss a broad range of issues related to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Our group represents a larger coalition of over 70 organizations and advocates from across the country who hope to use this opportunity to push forward the national conversation, which is sorely missing, about HIV/AIDS. While we were optimistic following what we felt was a productive meeting, our optimism quickly turned to disappointment when your campaign issued a news release misrepresenting the meeting with HIV/AIDS leadership entitled “Sanders Backs California Ballot Initiative to Rein in Drug Prices at Meeting with HIV/AIDS Advocates.” As 19 representatives of the coalition, nearly half of whom are either based in or affiliated with organizations in California, we are deeply concerned as this may now appear as if we were exploited for short-term political gain leading up to the imminent California Presidential Primary Election.

Your campaign’s release title and the bulk of its content mislead readers and the press to believe that our May 25 meeting was primarily focused on your endorsement of a California ballot initiative on HIV drug pricing. By extension, it also implies that our national HIV/AIDS coalition also fully endorses this initiative. Both these characterizations are inaccurate.

During the meeting, we raised the issue of the California ballot initiative with you toward the tail end of the discussion, not to support or endorse it, but to relay to you that a number of stakeholders in California have serious concerns about the initiative. There is no general consensus in the HIV/AIDS community in support of the California ballot initiative, which is why we requested that you meet with those stakeholders. Prior to our meeting, numerous California organizations have tried to reach your campaign with these concerns, without any success.

While our coalition is frustrated by your campaign’s release about the initiative, which was only touched upon briefly during our time together, we are eager to continue the dialogue around the other critical issues that were the focus of the meeting, especially:

your commitment to ending AIDS as an epidemic in the U.S. by getting to below 12,000 new annual HIV infections by 2025;
ending the global epidemic by 2030 by increasing the U.S. global AIDS funding commitment by $2 billion dollars per year;
groups at high risk for HIV infection, including transgender persons and those incarcerated;
creation of an expert task force to develop a national plan;
increased funding for HIV/AIDS research;
and a campaign to fight HIV discrimination, criminalization, and stigma.
In order to refocus our attention back to the critical issues raised in the meeting, our coalition will release the full meeting notes early next week, which will allow for greater transparency with our coalition partners, as well as the broader HIV/AIDS community. While we believe your campaign’s press release misrepresented the overall purpose and outcome of the meeting, we hope to continue engaging with your campaign.

Sincerely,

Tranisha Arzah, Peer Advocate, BABES-NETWORK YWCA

Jaron Benjamin, Vice President for Community Mobilization, Housing Works

Marco Alonso Castro-Bojorquez, Activist & Filmmaker

Guillermo Chacón, President, Latino Commission on AIDS; Founder, Hispanic Health Network

Thomas Davis, Health Education Specialist, Los Angeles LGBT Center

Kenyon Farrow, U.S. & Global Health Policy Director, Treatment Action Group (TAG)

Donnie Hue Frazier III, Prevention Training Specialist, APLA Health & Wellness

Ramon Gardenhire, Vice President of Policy & Advocacy, AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC)

Naina Khanna, Executive Director, Positive Women’s Network – USA

Kelsey Louie, MSW, MBA, CEO, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC)

Hilary McQuie, Director of U.S. Policy & Grassroots Mobilization, Health GAP

Nadia Rafif, Director of Policy, Global Forum on MSM and HIV

Michael Emanuel Rajner, BSW, HIV/AIDS Activist and Social Worker

Venita Ray, Public Affairs Field Specialist, Legacy Community Health

Bamby Salcedo, President and CEO, The TransLatin@ Coalition

Andrew Spieldenner, Ph.D., United States People Living with HIV Caucus

Peter Staley, AIDS Activist

DaShawn Usher, Community Education and Recruitment Manager, New York Blood Center’s Project ACHIEVE; Chair, Young Black Gay Men’s Leadership Initiative (YBGLI) Vice-President, Impulse Group NYC

Phill Wilson, President and CEO, Black AIDS Institute

Posted on May 27, 2016 at 1:20 pm

http://www.housingworks.org/news-press/detail/an-open-letter-to-sen.-sanders-challenging-the-characterization-of-meeting

[Her Sister]

1. Berned Again: HIV/AIDS Activists Say Bernie Sanders ‘Misled’ Public and ‘Exploited’ Their Meeting

http://www.mediaite.com/online/berned-again-hivaids-activists-say-bernie-sanders-misled-public-and-exploited-their-meeting/

After putting pressure on the Bernie Sanders campaign to agree to meet with them, a coalition of HIV/AIDS activists now say that the independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate is “misleading the public” about the content of that meeting, and “exploiting” their group for short-term political gain, even implying an endorsement by the group that they did not make.

Those charges are contained in a scathing open letter to the Sanders campaign signed by 19 members of the coalition, in which the group says Sanders pimped their meeting in a press release that made it sound like the group endorses a piece of legislation that Sanders supports:

As we reported a few weeks ago, activist Michael Rajner appeared on Joy Reid’s show to lobby for a meeting with Sanders’ campaign after they paid his group less mind than even Donald Trump’s campaign, and when the pressure worked, Rajner and his group were pleased. According to the group’s letter, they still hope to engage with Sanders’ campaign in the future, but will be releasing the full meeting notes next week.

Update: The Sanders campaign responded to the activists’ letter by accusing them of being stooges for pharmaceutical companies. No, I’m not kidding. You can read the full response here, but here’s a taste:

"This is absolutely absurd and ridiculous. No presidential candidate running for president is more committed to ending the AIDS epidemic than Bernie Sanders. And you would know this if you read Bernie’s plan. Here is a copy:

https://berniesanders.com/issues/hiv-and-aids/

While we are disappointed in your continued mischaracterizations and repeated attacks on the Bernie Sanders campaign, it is not surprising that someone who depends on Gilead Sciences and other big pharmaceutical companies for funding would continue to drop bombs on the only presidential candidate who has the courage to stand up to the greed of the big drug companies."

[stopbush]

2. Sanders disgusts me.

[Walk away]

3. In so many horrible ways!

[DemonGoddess]

4. JEEEEEEEZ

[Haveadream]

5. This is REALLY bad

Even for the lengths the Sanders campaign goes to paint anyone who challenges them as establishment or corrupt, this is going too far. So much for running a decent campaign. Actions like this really put all of the charges leveled at everyone else into perspective.

Can you imagine how important their meeting with Sanders was to them? How crushed they are to have their primary concerns brushed aside? Then, to be used a fodder for Sander's own agenda? And finally, to be cravenly accused of corruption when calling Sander's campaign out on their lies and exploitation?

Disgusting.

[SharonClark]

6. That's Sanders for you - can't take criticism