| |
| Global Partnerships
|
|
TAG has formed strong and vital partnerships with our activist colleagues around the world. In 1998, we co-sponsored the first international treatment activist workshop, just before the international conference in Geneva. In 2000, we marched with 5,000 South Africans from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in Durban, calling for global access to drugs for HIV/AIDS.
TAG's Yvette Delph, M.D., Gregg Gonsalves, Mark Harrington, and Michael Marco returned to South Africa in November 2000. For two exciting, intense and exhausting weeks we conducted a series of trainings with the TAC, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), and San Francisco's Project Inform. In Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town, working with a group of doctors and activists from South Africa, we trained over 300 South Africans on HIV basics, including the immune system, treatment, tuberculosis and opportunistic infections, mother-to-child transmission and prevention, how to treat women and children with HIV, and treatment activist skills development. Since then, TAC has won a series of enormous victories for people with AIDS (PWAs) in South Africa and in other developing countries. We are proud to partner with TAC and to have been able to help strengthen AIDS activism where it's most needed. ¤ |
| A Grim Anniversary
|
|
June 6, 2001 marks the twentieth anniversary of the first report of the AIDS epidemic by the CDC. No one could then have imagined the immense and expanding toll the new disease would take, nor how much mobilization would be required to combat the disease. No matter how long it takes, TAG will be fighting until there is a cure and a vaccine for this worst human pandemic since the Black Plague in the 14th century. ¤ |
| 2000 RESEARCH IN ACTION AWARDS |
(From left) Anthony Fauci, M.D., Lynda Dee, Ricki Lake, John Waters, Barbara Hughes, Tom Viola and Nathan Lane. |
On December 6, 2000, gallerist Nick Debs opened his beautiful West Village home to host our annual Research in Action Awards with artist Joy Episalla.
Over 150 guests attended the event, which raised more than $45,000 for TAG. Talk show host and actress Ricki Lake was also on hand to host the party, along with director John Waters, who presented activist Lynda Dee with an award. Actor Nathan Lane presented an award to Tom Viola, Executive Director of Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS, while Mark Harrington presented the final award to Anthony Fauci, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. Special thanks to our event sponsors, The Chase Manhattan Private Bank and James Allman. ¤
|
| HIV Treatment Goes Global |
RIAA co-hosts Joy Episalla and Nick Debs
with TAG Board chair Barbara Hughes. |
In November 2000, TAG's Mark Harrington was invited to speak with Brazil's leading PWA organization, Grupo Pela Vidda, in Rio de Janeiro. Unlike any other developing country, Brazil has contained its HIV epidemic by providing free antivirals, often made by Brazilian manufacturers, to all Brazilians with HIV who need it. Mark's talk, "Brazil: What Went Right?" can be viewed on TAG's website at:
www.aidsinfonyc.org/tag/activism/brazil.html
Actor Nathan Lane. |
The U.S. has been putting trade pressure on Brazil to stop making generic drugs available to its population.
Ricki Lake, TAG's Yvette Delph, M.D.,
and John Waters. |
TAG has met with U.S. Trade representatives and others to defend the rights of developing countries to put public health above pharmaceutical profits.
More recently, Mark was the only AIDS activist invited to a small, intense meeting sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to try and figure out how to harmonize public health and international trade laws and treaties. TAG works with AIDS groups worldwide in the struggle for global treatment access. ¤
|
| TAG 2000 Research in Action Award Recipients |
 
Director John Waters presents the RIA award
to Lynda Dee. |
Lynda M. Dee, ESQ.
Attorney Lynda Dee has served as a member of TAG's Board of Directors since 1993. She has been president of AIDS Action Baltimore since 1987. She has also served as a national board member of Project Inform, Inc. since 1992. In addition to her work on numerous others boards, activist Lynda Dee has tirelessly represented the community on NIH, Office of AIDS Research, FDA, NCI, NIAID, NIMH, and ACTG committees, among others. She has also served as a watchdog on many pharmaceutical oversight committees. Lynda has been a key player in many important AIDS activist campaigns as a member of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) Opportunistic Infections Committee, its executive committee, and its Community Constituency Group (CCG), and as a member of several other NIH oversight committees. She is also on the executive committee of the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research (FCHR), and is a key leader in the Coalition for Salvage Therapy (CST), the Fair Pricing Working Group (FPWG), and the Long-Term Effectiveness Research Interest Group.
 
Actor Nathan Lane presents the RIA award to Tom Viola and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. |
Tom Viola
Tom Viola is the Executive Director of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the nation's leading industry-based, not-for-profit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organization. Since its founding in 1987, BC/EFA has raised over $50 million for critically-needed services for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families nationwide. Tom wrote "Broadway on Broadway," a live outdoor concert in Times Square, televised by WNBC for the first time this past year, as well as Carnegie Hall's "Lerner and Loewe and…" a tribute to Alan Jay Lerner, and "A Tribute to Comden and Green." Tom co-wrote and completed Colleen Dewhurst: Her Autobiography, published by Scribner (1996), and is the co-author of Broadway: Day & Night, published by Pocket Books (1992). He co-produced the Off-Broadway productions of "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me" (1992) and "The Destiny of Me" (1993) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
 
TAG Senior Policy Director Mark Harrington,
presents the RIA award to Anthony Fauci, M.D. |
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. came to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1968 and became first director of the NIH Laboratory of Immunoregulation (LIR). In 1984, he was appointed Director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID). As a scientist, he has made many contributions to basic and clinical research on the pathogenesis and treatment of immune-mediated diseases. He has developed effective therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, Wegener's granulomatosis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis. Dr. Fauci has made seminal
contributions to the understanding of how the AIDS virus destroys the body's defenses. He has been instrumental in developing strategies for the therapy and immune reconstitution of patients with HIV disease, and in developing a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. He continues to devote much of his time to identifying the nature of the immunopathogenic mechanisms of HIV infection and the scope of the body's immune responses to the AIDS retrovirus. Dr. Fauci is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards for his scientific accomplishments, including 22 honorary doctorate degrees from universities in the U.S. and abroad. He is author, coauthor, or editor of more than 990 scientific publications, and many text books. Dr. Fauci has also been an early and consistent defender of the right of PWAs and their advocates to participate in federal AIDS research and treatment policy-making. Fauci has demonstrated his commitment to HIV research and treatment in his leadership of NIAID, in his laboratory, and in the public sphere. ¤ |
| Treatment Action Group |
The Treatment Action Group (TAG) fights to find a cure for AIDS and to ensure that all people living with HIV receive the necessary treatment, care and information they need to save their lives.
TAG focuses on both the public and private AIDS research effort, the drug development process and the U.S. and global health care delivery systems. TAG works with researchers, pharmaceutical companies and government officials involved in AIDS.
TAG strives to develop the scientific and political expertise needed to transform policy in this country and around the world, and is committeed to working for and with all communities affected by HIV. ¤ |
| AIDS Research: The Next Ten Years
|
| This year brings a new president, a new Congress, and new leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) to Washington. To brief the new leadership on AIDS research priorities for the next decade, TAG has interviewed some 50 leading AIDS researchers. Our report, AIDS Research: A Strategic Plan for the New Millennium, will be released in conjunction with the June 2001 United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS - the first time the UN has ever devoted such a session to a specific disease. As you can see, we have our work cut out for us. Thanks to your support, we will keep on fighting to make a difference in the lives of people with HIV here in the U.S. and around the world. ¤ |
| Fighting HIV and Hepatitis C at Home |
| Now that we have effective anti-HIV drugs, the leading cause of death in HIV-infected people in the U.S. is liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). TAG's Michael Marco is the country's leading expert on how HIV and HCV affect each other, and the leading activist promoting the need for more research and better anti-hepatitis drugs. His many reports on HIV and HCV can be viewed on TAG's website. ¤ |
| www.treatmentactiongroup.org |
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Barbara Hughes
President
Laura Morrison
Secretary/Treasurer
Lynda Dee, Esq.
Richard Lynn, PhD
Alby P. Maccarone, Jr.
Sally Morrison
Mark O'Donnell
Bruce Schackman, PhD
Greg Thompson
BOARD OF ADVISORS
Arthur J. Ammann, MD
Constance Benson, MD
Ross Bleckner
David Caddick
Barry Diller
Matthew Epstein |
Judith Feinberg, MD
Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD
Margaret A. Hamburg, MD
David D. Ho, MD
Donald Kotler, MD
Michael Isbell, Esq.
Mathilde Krim, PhD
Susan E. Krown, MD
James G. Pepper
William G. Powderly, MD
Joseph A. Sonnabend, MD
Timothy J. Sweeney
Tommy Tune
Urvashi Vaid
Simon Watney
In Memorium
Jonathan M. Mann, MD, MPH
Michael Palm
Elizabeth Glaser |
STAFF
Mark Harrington
Senior Policy Director
Yvette Delph, M.D.
Antiviral Project Director
Michael Marco
Oncology/Infections Project Director
Michael Barr
TAGline Editor
Regina Gillis
Administrative Director
TREATMENT ACTION GROUP
611 Broadway, Ste. 612
New York, NY 10012
(212) 253-7922 phone
(212) 253-7923 fax |
| | |
