Wash Post mistakenly calls Castroguys a gay community group

May 13, 2002

Letters Editor
Washington Post
Washington, DC
Email addresses to receive this letter: letters [at] washpost.com; sanchezr [at] washpost.com


Dear Sir or Madam:

The paper that broke the Watergate scandal and brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon seems to have forgotten the advice informant Deep Throat gave to Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: follow the money.

Post writer Rene Sanchez’s May 12 story about the state of AIDS complacency and HIV prevention in San Francisco's gay Castro district contained a passing reference to a new group that bears some scrutiny. The story is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5756-2002May11.html.

Here the part that concerns me: "I don't know how effective this will be," said Larry Hanbrook, a city health worker who leads a gay community group called Castroguys. "But we've got to get people's attention, or things could get terrible again."

Castroguys is not a gay community group. They say so in many ways on their web site, that is located at: http://www.castroguys.org.

“We're part of a unique collaboration between the San Francisco department of Public Health, the UCSF Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, and a vibrant Community Advisory Board comprised of activists, physicians, social workers, artists, and program leaders,” claims the site's opening page.

A local government health department is not part of the gay community, and UCSF’s CAPS, which receives the bulk of its funding from the federal and state governments under the auspices of its University of California charter, hardly qualifies as a community group for gay men. I'm not sure who is on the vibrant advisory board since the names are curiously missing from the Castroguys web site, but I would wager the same old names from the health department, UCSF and other AIDS groups are on the board.

To drive home the point that Castroguys is not coming from the grassroots gay male community, their site proudly boasts, “Funds for the project come from a generous grant from Bristol Meyers Squibb Virology and Matching funds from the San Francisco Mayor's Office.”

There simply is no way, in my opinion, that a gay "community based" group with grants from Big Pharma and Democratic Mayor Willie Brown, and run by employees of the San Francisco health department and the UCSF or other AIDS nonprofits can genuinely be from the community, as the Post alleges.

To further back up my claims that Castroguys and the men behind it are not part of the grassroots gay community, here is a quote from Tom Coates, Ph.D., director of UCSF AIDS prevention programs and research. The quote is from an interview conducted by Gay.com last fall.

"Q: What has changed since the beginning of the epidemic?

"A: [Tom Coates reply]
In my heart of hearts, I really think the community response we saw was integral to the gay community. It was closely tied to civil rights and loss of civil rights, as well as fear of discrimination. As much as I hate the term "AIDS, Inc." that some people use accusatively, we have these organizations almost beating on the community to get it to change its behavior. They are not perceived as part of the community."

It is more than a mere perception. It is reality. Coates is admitting here what many rank and file members of the gay community have known for quite some time, and that is, groups like the one Coates heads are outside the community fabric.

Reporter Sanchez might have delved a bit into who is funding all of the existing HIV and sexually transmitted disease programs, which are an alarming failure in San Francisco. He might have also added something about where the money for new programs coming from. It would have been unique, and certainly informative, if Sanchez followed the money behind STD and HIV efforts here.

I don't see a scandal remotely close to Watergate lurking behind who is funding Castroguys. But I vehemently believe it has long since been time for papers like the Post to routinely follow the AIDS money trail, wherever it may lead. This latest Post article detailing the abysmal state of HIV and STD prevention in San Francisco should have mentioned the amount of money spent on prevention of these diseases.

Sincerely,
Michael Petrelis
San Francisco, CA
Phone: 1-415-621-6267
Email: MPetrelis [at] aol.com