Petrelis Files

LA Times Omission: Facts on Latest "Controversial" HIV Ads

[I sent this letter off today to several contacts at the Los Angeles Times.]


Readers' Representative
The Los Angeles Times
Email: readers.rep@latimes.com

Dear Sir or Madam:

Your September 30 story on the latest manufactured controversy by the Better World Advertising group for the Los Angeles gay center, demonizing gay men for an alleged silence about HIV and AIDS issues, left out several facts.

The article quotes Lorri L. Jean, the head of the gay center, as claiming "[a] very alarming silence has descended over our community with regard to HIV and AIDS."

I would like to know how Jean measures silence and how she determines if it is increasing, going down or remains stable. So much of what Jean and her group allege on their web site, regarding this "alarming silence" may be true, but no hard, scientific data is presented on the site, or by your paper, to back up the claim.

Indeed, the Times' omitted the latest HIV and AIDS statistics for Los Angeles. Interesting that the provisional stats, through the end of 2005, show both full-blow AIDS cases and new HIV infections are slightly declining. Yes, the HIV and AIDS numbers will certainly climb marginally once all labs reports are eventually provided to the county's epidemiologists, but even so, charts 1 and 2, on page 7 of the current report, clearly show no increases and some promising declines.

How can there be an alarming silence and an apparent drop in both HIV and AIDS in Los Angeles?

By the way, you should know that a similar declining pattern was reported in San Francisco's just-released HIV/AIDS annual epi report, which said in the executive summary, on page 12: "The current HIV/AIDS epidemic is characterized by no apparent increases in HIV infection rates over the past five years, and with considerable decreases in some populations."

Other facts left out of the Time story are the following things: information about the costs of the new social marketing campaign; whether the federal, state or county governments are funding it; if an HIV community advisory board approved the campaign; and how it will be decided if the campaign is a success or failure.

I must also add that I would have liked the Times to address the matter of continually barraging the gay community with such prevention campaigns and the negative impact manufacturing controversy by Better World Advertising may be having on gay men's health.

For the past decade or so, gay men, our sex lives and our emotions have been subject to an endless series of controversial ad campaigns, more often than not created by this ad agency with government dollars, designed to provoke us into communication or to take action over our health needs. For examples of those efforts, click here, and here.

And the campaigns all share one common factor: find and exploit a controversial angle. As if it's not enough that we gays on a daily basis must deal with religious and political controversies stirred up by our opponents who sometimes question our very existence, right to love and live safely, we must also contend with AIDS groups hitting us with new controversial campaigns every few months.

Since when did controversy become THE fundamental building block on which to create effective gay health programs? Is there any verifiable proof controversies lead to a better well-being for gay men and is any other community subjected to constant, hostile, accusatory social marketing campaigns?

Before he passed away this summer, AIDS activist and gay leader Eric Rofes wrote an insightful essay about why some of us reject the controversial prevention messages forced on by AIDS service organizations:

"Many thoughtful gay men hunger for a deeper and more complex analysis of what’s going on in our communities. We no longer trust AIDS experts because they’ve shouted “Fire!” in this theatre too many times. Health advocates frequently mistake our boredom at their superficial and vapid analyses for complacency about the health of our communities. We care deeply about the well being of gay men’s communities; we are simply enraged at the repeated manipulation of statistics and emotions in the name of HIV prevention. And we hunger for vision: a new vision for HIV prevention, a new vision of gay male communities, a new vision of gay men’s health and wellness."

Finally, it strikes as very telling that on the new campaign's site, the LA gay center leaders list this as something gays can do to end the supposed AIDS silence:

"Get involved politically to let your elected representatives know that HIV continues to disproportionately affect our community and that funding for effective prevention programs is badly needed."

Frankly, I've never seen a social marketing campaign, probably funded by a government agency, telling gay men to get politically active and ask politicians for more money. I'm surely not one to oppose gay men being political or demanding more government funds for gay health programs, but I do sense a desire on the part of those behind the new ad campaign to use it to drum up more money for the LA gay center.

Count me as one gay man who wants effective HIV prevention campaigns that don't incite controversy for its own sake, and that don't use social marketing to increase government funds for the salaries of bureaucrats at the LA gay center.

Best regards,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
Ph: 415-621-xxxx