Petrelis Files

S.F.'s Secretive HIV/AIDS Advisory Panels?

The lack of basic meeting information for the HIV vaccines trials CAB, community advisory board, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health but locally administered by the San Francisco Department of Public Health's AIDS Office, may be in violation of federal, state and municipal sunshine ordinances and open meetings' statutes.

Click here to see how the CAB does not post any details about where and when it meets, nor is there an archive of agendas and minutes. All that's available for SF's vaccine trials' advisory panel is a short, upbeat pitch in support of the panel.

The CAB proudly says:

The purpose of the CAB is to include community members at all levels of the research process: study design, gaining informed consent, community education, recruitment efforts, results dissemination and the protection of study volunteers.

Apparently one level where the community is excluded is at the CAB level! Too bad the great rhetoric is not matched by reality.

Why is the CAB not sharing anything about its meetings and what has been on the agenda for the last few years, especially when government regulations clearly mandate keeping the public and affected communities fully informed?

I sense a velvet rope mentality at work here and like the hottest nite-spots only letting in the most fabulous people, or pals of the bouncers manning the velvet ropes, this CAB and its members probably think they can pick and choose who has access to the minutes or can attend their general public meetings.

No one is helped by keeping the community ignorant about the workings of the CAB and what's happening with recruitment for SF's arm of the vaccine trials. I've filed complaints with the appropriate authorities regarding sunshine law violations, as one way of trying to rectify the problem with the CAB.

At the same time, the vaccine trials CAB is not the only branch of the health department's HIV programs not doing all it can to engage and inform people with AIDS or HIV and the gay community.

This summer the Board of Supervisors mandated the DPH create an advisory panel on housing issues affecting people living with AIDS, and that monthly public meetings were to take place. Click here for the meeting schedule.

The first such meeting actually happened last week, but not many PWAs knew about it. Click here to read last week's agenda and notice that no information is provided about who's in charge of the panel or is a member, not to mention how to get an item on the agenda at future meetings.

There's been a longstanding problem in this town, really, ever since the dawn of the HIV crisis, and that is the active hoarding by AIDS Inc and the DPH of legally-required basic information about government-created advisory boards and the problem certainly is not diminishing this year.

Okay, while there's a degree of secretiveness over the vaccine CAB and the HIV housing panel, it wouldn't take much effort or time on the DPH's part to post and publicize advance agendas, meeting times and minutes for the panels.