It’s an interesting perspective- from David Moulton
Some excerpts below:
In 1988, the gay author and activist Larry Kramer published an open letter to Anthony Fauci, who in his role as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases—a position he held until last year—was the government official responsible for overseeing most AIDS research. From the opening paragraph, Kramer pulled no punches in his attack on Fauci’s perceived slowness in testing and approving the sale of drugs to fight AIDS. He called NIAID officials “monsters,” “idiots,” and “murderers,” and went on to compare Fauci to Adolf Eichmann. More than just angry, Kramer’s tone was downright apocalyptic. He referred to AIDS as “the worst epidemic in modern history, perhaps to be the worst in all history.”
What’s most remarkable about this document, other than its vitriol, is the fact that it turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. After its publication, Kramer and Fauci began to correspond and later got together regularly over the decades. “We loved each other,” Fauci told The New York Times after Kramer died in 2020, just a few months after Covid had placed the NIAID director in the spotlight once more. In the interview,
Fauci fondly recalled that Kramer would regularly denounce him to the press but then tell him privately he “didn’t really mean it. I just wanted to get some attention.”Beneath their public antagonism, thetwo men had a shared interest in keeping AIDS in the public eye, since this would increase funding for drug research.
Really interesting, no? Kramer publicly denounces Fauci but privately tells him “he didn’t really mean it”?
That’s weird- Because their actions were mutually beneficial for NAID and big pharma but not necessarily beneficial to those dealing with AIDS
The bond between Kramer and Fauci exemplifies a broader transformation in the relation of activism to science and the pharmaceutical industry. Increasingly, Big Pharma has come to cast its pursuit of profits in humanitarian language borrowed from activist groups, enlisting apparently radical activists as partners and turning to them for rhetorical support. The AIDS crisis was a pivotal chapter in this process, and the way it played out set the stage for later developments, from the Covid pandemic to the recent explosion of transgender identification.
I’ve felt quite certain that big pharma and the medical industry has been pushing the trans agenda- that’s implied in the article, but, my opinion, it’s the reality. Because, the trans agenda is so highly aligned with very big business interests. And very broadly promoted. Anyone who disapproves is immediately invalidated, slammed and shamed. Viciously.
In 1987, a year before Kramer penned his j’accuse against Fauci, the first ever drug to fight AIDS had been approved for sale after the fastest trial in Food and Drug Administration history. Azidothymidine, or AZT, was a failed cancer drug repurposed to fight the new disease.
As confrontational as it was, ACT UP was also adept at making alliances.
It hailed from the far left, but its goals weren’t always traditionally leftist ones.In fact, the movement’s rallying cry “Drugs Into Bodies” aligned it with a conservative push to deregulate the pharmaceutical industry, conversely pitting it against liberals who favored regulation and consumer protection.Moreover, despite ACT UP’s radical aesthetics, much of the medical and scientific establishment wound up finding the group’s message congenial.
I prefer the pharmaceutical industry would be better regulated because the potential for harm is and has been so large. We see where the so called/self identified left Liberal/Democrat now walks hand in hand with big pharma and ignores the harm. No wonder I cannot relate to that subservience.
Read the rest at the above link!
Finally, I seem to recall some heavy criticism of ACT UP in the AIDS community? But, can’t recall quite where I read the information. If anyone else has come across that critical analysis would you leave a link in the comments?