Activist Peter Staley Slams Bernie Sanders For Misleading Statement About Meeting On HIV/AIDS

[dlwickham]

http://www.joemygod.com/2016/05/26/activist-peter-staley-slams-bernie-sanders-for-misleading-statement-about-meeting-on-hivaids/

From the Facebook page of noted HIV/AIDS activist Peter Staley:

“Feeling used and abused by the Sanders campaign right now. They just issued a press release making it sound like our meeting was about his endorsement of AHF’s drug pricing ballot initiative in CA. Senator Sanders never brought the issue up during our meeting. WE brought it up near the end, only to tell him that we had been flooded with messages from all the leading AIDS organizations in CA with deep concerns about AHF’s initiative — they are worried it could actually negatively impact access to AIDS drugs.

“Those groups have tried to reach the campaign with these concerns but had hit a brick wall. We asked Sanders to designate someone in his campaign to talk with these groups, and he agreed to this. WE DID NOT ENDORSE AHF’S INITIATIVE. His campaign should not have issued a press release implying this was a major topic of discussion at the meeting, and that there was general agreement on the Senator’s position on this. Anything but.”

[Betty Karlson]

1. Just wondering… How could lowering the costs of AIDS drugs negatively impact access to healthcare?

Doesn’t make a lot of sense. Staley didn’t explain it in his Facebook post, and I’m wondering if he clearly explained it during his meeting with Sanders.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. There were 20 people at the meeting, one person is taking issue with a press release's wording

He does not explain his concerns because voicing those concerns is not his objective. And that is very telling. At his own website the story about this has zero comments. Not one.

[Betty Karlson]

3. Just another sell-out then, who thinks that he owes this nnsense to the stablishment.

Maybe Clinton is afraid that the GLBT community has a memory that goes back further than 2 years.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. It's so complicated this one. But the fact is this bill is supported by many, many organizations

and very excellent people while it is opposed by some excellent people and also Big Pharma, Kaiser, and other entities this movement has always, always opposed. To get me to side with Insurance and Drug companies against any effort to control costs Peter needs to do more than talk about his hurt feelings when he gets the spotlight. His contention is that he and Kaiser are right about keeping drug prices as they are while AARP and AHF are wrong. In this post, he made no case at all to support his position, that's unfortunate.