Live 8 blamed for AIDS cash gap

The producer of Elton John's July 4 benefit and concert said the mega-show's hoopla affected fund-raising efforts.

Philadelphia's host role in the Live 8 concerts last month may have backfired in at least one way.

As Mark Segal sees it, the July 2 mega-show on the Parkway, and all the publicity surrounding it, ate into the $1 million that he expected to raise for area HIV/AIDS service organizations. That money was to have come from the Elton John benefit and concert also held on the Parkway that holiday weekend, on July Fourth.

When the free Elton John event was announced in February, Segal, publisher of the Philadelphia Gay News and the main event organizer, said he anticipated raising $2 million.

The proceeds were to be split between the Elton John AIDS Foundation and the local Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld Fund, which was to distribute the money to local HIV/AIDS service groups.

But while the Elton John AIDS Foundation already received its cash, it remains uncertain whether any local organizations will also receive any money, and if so, how much.

"[Live 8] took the publicity edge away. We couldn't get the people after that. Everything dried up," Segal said Friday in an interview. "It's just an unlucky break."

Word that Philadelphia was to be one of nine host cities of the daylong Live 8 concerts did not emerge publicly until about a month before the event - and almost four months after the Elton John concert was announced. The point of the Live 8 concerts was to pressure the world's eight leading industrialized nations to help relieve Africa's debt.

"If Live 8 wasn't there," Segal said, "I am absolutely positive we would have reached [the goal]."

Segal said the Hirschfeld Fund was still reviewing its finances and was still in the process of collecting money from contributors. A full financial statement should be publicly released early next month, he said.

By that time, Segal also expects to know whether the Hirschfeld Fund's chief backer, the nonprofit Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, will forgive a $667,000 loan it made to help put on the concert.

"They've asked us for forgiveness, and we are in the process of studying the financials to determine what to do next," said Ken Snyder, a spokesman for the alliance, which is associated with State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.). Snyder said Segal had initially requested a $1 million loan.

In spite of the shortfall, Segal and at least one potential recipient of the money didn't express grave disappointment Friday.

"We've been raising money for HIV and AIDS in Philadelphia for 19 years... and we know how hard it is to raise money," said Robb Reichard, executive director of AIDS Fund, a Center City-based organization. "The reality is that $1 million going toward the global epidemic is a good thing, and should not be overshadowed."

Segal echoed that sentiment and also noted that the event raised AIDS awareness and invigorated Philadelphia's July Fourth celebration. "I'm a very proud producer," he said.

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How much more money does AID/HIV need while other diseases/ medical conditions go unfunded (and happen to kill/affect many more American's than AIDS/HIV does)?

* The Federal AIDS budget of $1.6 billion is greater than that for cancer ($1.5 billion), although cancer killed 12 times as many people last year. The article also quoted without challenge a statement by Michael Fumento, author of The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, that AIDS would never kill more than 35,000 to 40,000 people a year.

* Twice as much money is being spent on drug development as on prevention of transmission, although experts believe that prevention, not treatment, should be the key to stopping the epidemic.

* The ratio of patient cost alone is extremely out of proportion to other diseases. For example, cancer and heart disease expenditures will be equal to under 5 percent of patient cost, and AIDS research funding will be about 230 percent greater than patient costs this year. This basically means that they are spending a great deal of unnecessary money on AIDS.

* Fumento makes a point of explaining how heart disease and cancer consume more lives on average in a year than AIDS ever has. He states that AIDS cases diagnosed would be but a fourth of all 1993 cancer deaths, heart disease would be even more than that, yet heart disease funding is only two-thirds of that of AIDS (529). Fumento also points out that cancer and heart disease pose a far greater health threat than AIDS. Heart disease kills over 750,000 Americans a year

* Traditional principles of drug approval are being "distorted." The article's prime example: that AZT was approved in less than four months, compared to an average of two years. The article invoked the memory of Laetrile, a discredited cancer treatment, to suggest that changes to speed FDA drug approval threaten to leave the public vulnerable to quack cures.

* "AIDS has a far greater impact than the number of its victims (sic) would dictate" -- implying it has been overemphasized -- because of the money, organization, and articulateness of the gay community

* AIDS Research Fraud prevalent. Three 1986 reports on AIDS research funding, including a major effort by 100 scientists and advocates released, say that a large proportion of the $ 1.3 billion spent by the National Institutes of Health that year went to programs that have little or nothing to do with AIDS. For instance, when Dr. Richard Klausner, head of the National Cancer Institute, was asked about $ 22558 million [sic] in AIDS funds used by the director of the Division of Cancer Treatment in 1994 for unspecified "personal services," he said he knew the money went for "salaries" but he couldn't say whose.

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