Who among us does not want to see AIDS stopped?
That might be dumb question #101, or alternatively, the
$64,000 question.
The Stop AIDS Project's (SAP) goal is laudable: to stop AIDS dead
in its tracks, before AIDS stops actual lives dead it their
tracks, prematurely. Who can be opposed to such
an honorable undertaking? Many of us want SAP to succeed,
but we're simultaneously quite concerned about SAPs effectiveness,
and whether its methods are furthering an end to AIDS, absent
proof that SAPs interventions are efficacious.
SAP has faced several federal audits, and a local San Francisco political commentator has called for defunding the Stop AIDS Project (see SAP in the Media). SAPs condom distribution is troublesome, its prevention interventions are of questionable use, its volunteers up and resigned en masse, and it continues publishing, then yanking the HIV Is No Picnic advertising campaign, usure internally whether its social marketing media messages are scientifically sound, or merely annoying to its donor base. SAPs Heores in HIV Prevention Awards are also troubling.