“JUAN DOE: VICTIM OF RED TAPE” – “SILENCE=DEATH” – “RIP BA

“JUAN DOE: VICTIM OF RED TAPE” – “SILENCE=DEATH” – “RIP BABIES WHO GOT PLACEBOS” – “IF I DIE OF AIDS - FORGET BURIAL - JUST DROP MY BODY ON THE STEPS OF THE F.D.A” – “FOR LOVE AND FOR LIFE” – “KILLED BY THE SYSTEM” – “RIP: KILLED BY THE F.D.A” – [images of political figures from Nancy Reagan to Adolf Hitler], ACT UP members (including David Wojnarowicz, center), Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Maryland, October 11, 1988. Photo by Chuck Stallard, c/o @onearchives. On October 11, 1988, twenty-eight years ago today, in what many consider to be the group’s debut as a national political force, AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP) descended on the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the “SEIZE CONTROL OF THE FDA” action. As ACT UP veteran Douglas Crimp later wrote, the “takeover of the FDA was unquestionably the most significant demonstration of the AIDS activist movement’s first two years.” The action, Crimp continued, “represented…a turning point in both recognition by the government of the seriousness and legitimacy of our demands and national awareness of the AIDS activist movement.” This “turning point occurred for two interrelated reasons: 1) the demonstrated knowledge by AIDS activists of every detail of the complex FDA drug approval process, and 2) a professionally designed campaign that prepared the media to convey our treatment issues to the public.” So, with a list of specific policy demands, “groups from around the country engaged all day in skirmishes” with police, and the activists did “manage to stop business as usual, to occupy FDA headquarters, at least symbolically. ACT UP graphics and banners covered the building’s façade, and demonstrators staged one piece of theater after another as the television cameras rolled on.” Professor Crimp believes the success of the takeover can “perhaps best be measured by what ensued in the year following the action,” when government agencies, particularly the FDA and the NIH, started to include AIDS activists in the decisionmaking process. #lgbthistory #lgbtherstory #lgbttheirstory #lgbtpride #QueerHistoryMatters #HavePrideInHistory #ActUp #FightBack #FightAIDS (at FDA) -- source link

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