#HIV #AIDS community meets with Sanders. We "feel used and abused" by Sanders campaign.

[riversedge]

Not sure what is going on. Just ran across these tweets.


ThisGuy4HILLARY ?@stylistkavin 3h3 hours ago

#HIV #AIDS community meets with Sanders. We "feel used and abused" by Sanders campaign. #ImWithHer

:large




Let's Kick ASS-PS ?@LKA_PS 59m59 minutes ago

Let's Kick ASS-PS Retweeted Peter Staley

Feel the burn, meeting w/ AIDS Activists Sanders campaign press release used and abused the HIV/AIDS community



Press release that sanders issued:

Press Release
Sanders Backs California Ballot Initiative to Rein in Drug Prices at Meeting with HIV/AIDS Advocates
May 25, 2016

Twitter Facebook Email Link

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday met with national HIV/AIDS advocates to discuss the epidemic and his support for a California ballot initiative to lower prices for taxpayer-supported AIDS treatments.

“Let me thank you for the work you do,” Sanders said at the conclusion of the meeting. “The issues you have raised are enormously important and effect millions of people in this country and more around the world.

“I look forward to continuing to work with you,” the senator added at the meeting hosted by Danny Glover, the activist and actor.

The ballot proposition Sanders supports – the California Drug Price Relief Act – is supported by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and National Nurses United, both headquartered in Oakland, California. The measure would prohibit the state from paying more for a prescription drug than the lowest price paid for the same drug by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It would make sure that state taxpayers will no longer be ripped off by pharmaceutical companies that charge exorbitant prices for AIDS treatments and other prescription drugs. “We think it’s a great start and we applaud the people of California for standing up to the pharmaceutical industry,” Sanders said afterward.

Sanders’ proposal to provide Medicare-for-all universal health care would also benefit the 1.2 million Americans with HIV/AIDS.

At the meeting, Sanders noted that he has introduced a plan to lower costs for HIV/AIDS drugs. His measure would establish a prize fund to provide incentives for drug makers to develop new treatments. Unlike the current system that lets drug makers charge the highest prices in the world for medicine sold in the United States, medical breakthroughs made under the prize fund system would make the new drugs available to the public at affordable prices.

Sanders also agreed to set a national goal of ending the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by the year 2025 so that HIV is no longer a public health threat to any community in the U.S. and that people with HIV are able to live long, healthy lives.

Sanders also has called for expansion of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program which provides HIV-related services. The senator also promised to push for stronger civil rights protections for people living with the disease.

To read Sanders’ platform, click here.

[DURHAM D]

1. So BS claimed another bogus endorsement.

No surprise there.

[Her Sister]

2. wow! Kinda confusing!

But doesn't sound good for BS!

[riversedge]

4. agree. seems

meeting went ok by many upset. Felt they were used by sanders camp.

[riversedge]

3. Follow-up @JoyAnnReid interview w/AIDS activist @MichaelRajner on last week's mtg between Clinton &

Seems bernie cancelled a meeting but Hillary did attend on May16.

Housing Works
?@housingworks

Follow-up @JoyAnnReid interview w/AIDS activist @MichaelRajner on last week's mtg between Clinton & HIV advocates
MSNBC
Video
Watch more on msnbc.com



10:44 AM - 16 May 2016

[Cha]

5. burnie sanders.. the.. what's the opposite of "genuine" candidate.. oh I know..

unauthentic.

Thank you for this, rivers~

[TwilightZone]

6. Here's my take...

First paragraph of the press release:

"U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday met with national HIV/AIDS advocates to discuss the epidemic and his support for a California ballot initiative to lower prices for taxpayer-supported AIDS treatments."

The Sanders press release says that the meeting was to discuss HIV/AIDS and his support of the ballot initiative.

Staley says that Sanders never brought up the initiative in the meeting, it wasn't a primary topic, and it wasn't discussed at all until the end of the meeting when Staley brought it up to note that they'd been inundated with messages noting deep concerns with the initiative. Deep concerns with the initiative that Sanders supports.

Hence, his objection to the way it was framed in the press release.

[Her Sister]

7. AIDS activists blast Sanders, say he “used and abused” them by lying about meeting

IDS activists are publicly excoriating Bernie Sanders after the Democratic presidential candidate outright lied about his oft-postponed meeting with HIV/AIDS leaders yesterday.

Sanders had agreed to the meeting a while ago, then abruptly canceled; incurring the wrath of AIDS activists after refusing to reschedule. The criticism apparently grew to be too much and Sanders was forced to relent and hold the meeting.

The latest eruption occurred after Sanders left the meeting and issued a press release claiming the activists joined him in supporting a controversial California drug initiative that the activists strongly oppose, and they’d indicated as much to Sanders.

Just as oddly, Sanders hadn’t even brought up the initiative at the meeting with the activists — it was they who raised the issue with him. Yet Sanders is now claiming that the meeting was set to discuss the initiative, and that the activists agreed with him, when they most certainly do not.

Veteran advocate Peter Staley weighed in on Facebook this afternoon:

by default 2016-05-26 at 4.23.42 PM

Here’s the text of what Peter wrote:

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.

It’s a complicated issue that John Weir gets into in detail here. But what isn’t complicated is that a group of America’s top HIV activists sat down with Bernie Sanders and told him unequivocally that they opposed this initiative. Sanders turned around and lied about them, and their alleged support for this initiative, ostensibly to endear himself to key organizations in California that can help him in the upcoming primary race in that state.

The thing is, the activists left the meeting pleased with Sanders, thinking things had gone well. Here’s Peter Staley:

We were all set to spin this meeting quite positively, but this press release is very misleading. Please see my post from last night — there were no attacks against the Senator in my first post on the meeting. We’ll still be reporting some of the positive stuff that came out of it. But his press team really scr*wed us.

It’s bad enough that Sanders blew off the AIDS community last month, and that up until a month or so ago Sanders didn’t even mention AIDS on the rather-short-on-substance LGBT page on his campaign site (the page was only beef upped after I publicly complained about its paucity). But for Sanders to take a community that’s already ticked at him, that he’s already dissed, and then use his meeting with them to curry favor with key political allies in a primary state is the height of the very Machiavellian politics that Sanders claims to eschew.

Silence = Death. And lies don’t help much either.

http://americablog.com/2016/05/aids-activists-blast-sanders-lying-meeting.html

[NurseJackie]

8. Disgusting.

@Alerter: This is my opinion.

[BootinUp]

9. Just a continuation of the same pattern nt

[George II]

10. Huh?

"At the meeting, Sanders noted that he has introduced a plan to lower costs for HIV/AIDS drugs. His measure would establish a prize fund to provide incentives for drug makers to develop new treatments."

Hasn't he been in Congress since 1989? What took so long, does he need their votes?