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In the Bay Area Reporter article which follows, San Francisco’s director of public health, Mitch Katz, MD, claims Shriver is “brilliant.” But the fact remains that Shriver has “brilliantly” been absent from his post for over two years, and no matter what kind of “fantastic work” he has done in the past, for the past two years he’s done absolutely nothing (or at least nothing that TheLastWatch has been able to obtain through public records requests). And despite the mayor’s press secretary’s assertion that the mayor has continued to be committed to HIV/AIDS issues in Shriver’s absence, the mayor has done squat to replace Shriver, and next to squat on other AIDS issues. [For instance, the mayor’s last summit on AIDS was held five years ago; I guess he was too buy planning five annual summits on the status of women to have noticed it was time to sponsor another summit on AIDS.] Shriver reportedly believes he doesn’t owe anyone “squat,” and the mayor has matched squat for squat. Shirver, brilliantly, has shown he knows how to take a two-year hiatus, and sill earn accolades. The’s all he has done in the past two years, except resurface from his “leave” when it suits his purpose, like showing up at awards ceremonies to schmooze.
| Mayor's AIDS office dormant Cover story, Bay Area Reporter,
June 12, 2003 by Matthew S. Bajko Reprint permission courtesy of the B.A.R. |
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As the battle over AIDS funding heated up at City Hall this week, one person has been notably absent from the debate — Mike Shriver, Mayor Willie Brown's AIDS czar. Shriver, who heads the Mayor's Office on AIDS and HIV Policy, has been out on disability for over a year and a half. Battling both HIV and hepatitis C, Shriver went on leave in September 2001, less than a year after being appointed to the position. Since then the Mayor's Office on AIDS has been dormant and AIDS agencies have been without a key voice within Brown's administration. The duties of the office have been redistributed to the health department's AIDS Office. "It hasn't been an easy task to fill his shoes. It is a hole, it is a huge hole. I don't know if we can completely fill it," said Jimmy Loyce, the deputy director of health for AIDS programs, who joined the health department's AIDS office around the same time Shriver first went on leave. "We hope for his return to the position stronger and with greater health than when he left the position." However, the contract with the University of California at San Francisco for the $50,000-a-year position ends on June 30, and it is unclear if it will be renewed. Also, with Brown leaving office in early January, the office's future will be determined by the next mayor. In the meantime, Shriver's extended leave has prompted some to question the validity and need of having such an office at City Hall. AIDS activist Michael Petrelis has called on the supervisors to investigate the office and for the mayor to justify his funding the position. In an interview with the Bay Area Reporter Friday, June 6, Shriver said he has every intention of returning to the job. But due to his continuing health problems, he could not be certain when he will return to work. "I am out on disability and that has to be respected," said Shriver, who has also taken a leave as co-director of the AIDS Policy Research Center at UCSF. "I don't owe anything other than that. I will be back to work when my doctor gives me the okay." While he's been out, Shriver said he has been checking his voicemail and e-mail to ensure messages are forwarded to the appropriate people. And via the Internet, he is able to stay abreast of the continuing dialogue on AIDS and HIV. Although he would not comment on why no one has been appointed to fill his position on a temporary basis, Shriver did say that he never expected to be gone this long from the job. When he informed Brown nearly two years ago of his decision, Shriver said, "The mayor's comment was, when I am better the job is there for me." Brown's spokesman, P.J. Johnston, said that no one has been named to replace Shriver because "the mayor for one doesn't fire people while they are out on disability leave." Secondly, Johnston said the mayor fully expects Shriver to return to work. "The work in Michael's office has largely been picked up in the interim by other employees with an expectation that Michael would hopefully be able to return to work soon and pick up where he has started," Johnston told the B.A.R. "Certainly Mike is missed in his position and the mayor hopes he is able to return to work." Brown created the office in January 1998 and appointed the late Dick Pabich to the position. Also that month the mayor held a summit on HIV and AIDS and Pabich set out to implement the recommendations that stemmed from the meeting. Pabich left the job later that year, and his trainee, Bill Barnes, took over until 2000. Barnes is now an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly. "From Mayor Brown's perspective it has been invaluable, from a policy perspective and from the perspective of maintaining an ardent commitment to the issue, to have Michael and, before him his predecessors, in that position," said Johnston. The position is responsible for everything from identifying budgetary requirements and sources of funding for the mayor's AIDS initiatives to monitoring the work of the public health department and city-funded agencies that provide AIDS services. The AIDS czar also oversees the staffing of the Mayor's HIV Scientific Advisory Committee and serves as the mayor's liaison to both the HIV Prevention and the Health Services planning councils. According to the office's Web page, beginning in spring 2002 the AIDS czar would issue quarterly reports "on legislative, budget, programmatic, and policy activities that are germane to HIV prevention, care, treatment, research, housing, and other ancillary services in San Francisco." Those reports have never been generated due to Shriver's absence. Some in the AIDS community say there is concern about the position going unfilled and that, in Shriver's absence, there has been a lessening of involvement on the part of the mayor's office in regard to AIDS. Some point to the recent forum on HIV and speed use, called by freshman Supervisor Bevan Dufty, as an example of an issue that has gone unaddressed. And the absence of Shriver, a nationally respected AIDS advocate, policy expert, and longtime activist, has implications for the AIDS community beyond just San Francisco. The policies adopted by the city are routinely implemented and duplicated by AIDS agencies throughout the country. "People have looked at us forever as the city to follow and what you do next. It is wonderful the position is being held for Michael. But you still have to have someone present," said former supervisor and mayoral candidate Angela Alioto, who tapped Shriver as her representative to an AIDS task force while she was in City Hall. "Michael would be the first one to say the job needs to be getting done." The AIDS czar vacancy also comes at a time when the Republican-controlled administration in Washington is exacting a toll on everything from AIDS research and HIV prevention guidelines to funding levels and, some say, unwarranted scrutiny of agencies like the Stop AIDS Project. As a former executive director of such groups as Mobilization Against AIDS and the National Association of People With AIDS, Shriver has extensive experience lobbying in Congress and that experience has been missed. "Mike is brilliant," said city health director Dr. Mitch Katz. "He has done fantastic work for San Francisco on a number of advocacy and programmatic fronts. We've missed his energy." In years past, AIDS agencies have relied on the AIDS czar to help them petition the supervisors to add back funding to their programs. With his four years on the city Health Commission, two of which serving as chair of the budget committee, Shriver was an invaluable ally for agencies trying to navigate the city's budgetary and political waters. "He's been an ardent, passionate, incredibly well-informed advocate all these years. We miss him in that role," said the executive director of Project Open Hand, Tom Nolan, whose agency turned to Shriver for help when it was facing budgetary problems back in 2000. "He was just so helpful through so much of our problems over the last several years. I would say now more than ever there is a need for that office." This year the mayor's budget calls for several million dollars worth of cuts in AIDS and HIV programs, and other programs are scrambling to find private, local, and state funding to make up for federal funding cuts. At no other time has the need for an AIDS czar, especially one with Shriver's experience, knowledge and contacts, been more acute. "HIV funding is very much political in San Francisco. We need somebody to have the political will to muster that. It takes political savvy and an astute person to be able to navigate the political waters of HIV and AIDS, both HIV prevention and AIDS funding and care," said Steve Gibson, the director of a new health center for gay men opening in the Castro next month. The center, called Magnet, owes its funding to Shriver's advocacy efforts. In 2000, Shriver convinced the mayor to match a challenge grant from DuPont Pharmaceuticals, which is now owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Along with Magnet, those funds have paid for several HIV initiatives. "The position has been very helpful in getting additional federal monies to San Francisco for HIV prevention," added Gibson. While most AIDS agencies now deal directly with the health department regarding issues and funding, they maintain there is still a need to have someone independent of the department to call on from time to time. "It is incredibly important certainly in San Francisco that the mayor's office has an active liaison to the AIDS community," said Shana Krochmal, spokeswoman for the Stop AIDS Project. "While DPH has strong programs and is responsive to the community, it is important both individual people with HIV and agencies that work with AIDS have a more direct line of communication to the mayor." Johnston said in spite of Shriver's absence, the mayor has continued to be committed to dealing with HIV and AIDS issues as well as maintaining as much funding as possible during tough economic times. "I think this administration would stack
up better against any other city and any previous administration
in its energy and efforts on behalf of people with AIDS and HIV,"
he said. |
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| An activist's take on AIDS Czar Letter-to-the-editor,
Bay Area Reporter, June 26, 2003 by Patrick Monette-Shaw |
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It is not just the Mayor's AIDS Czar who lies dormant (Mayor's AIDS office dormant, June 12) when he isn't simply lying to the press; people who are relying on the City for sound AIDS advocacy and sound healthcare services allocation have been forced into dormancy so that one person - Mike Shriver - can assert he doesn't owe anyone squat, including the purported 15,000 PLWH/A who have relied on him to advocate for their needs. Ostensibly, Shiver believes that those 14,999 others have to "respect" his special needs, above theirs, and that he owes no one squat. In January and February 2001, Shriver convened a "Consensus Panel" to determine the incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco, a task which had not been conducted since 1997. When drafts of the consensus [report] were posted for public comment, I examined preliminary findings and presented the first of my feedback ripping his work to shreds. I held in reserve more glaring criticism, but my initial commentary, in part, kept Shriver from issuing an unabridged version of his analysis of HIV/AIDS trends between 1997 and 2001. Here it is 2003, and all that has emanated under Shriver's pen with the mayor's approval is a pathetic 14-page PowerPoint presentation presented in abridged form, replete with a single page of narrative text describing the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. Brown had plenty of opportunity to fire Shriver between March and September 2001 for Mike's nincompoopism in failing to issue a final, 150-page consensus report, after Shriver issued his measly slide show in July 2001 and before Shriver wised up and went on "disability" in September 2001 in order to escape reporting accurately the scope of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. Nearly two years have passed since Shiver shirked his duties (apparently with the mayor's blessing), and San Francisco is now into year six of waiting for an official "consensus" statement to be issued since the last consensus statement was issued way back in 1997. Shriver should be vilified by the AIDS community, not heaped useless praise. Each of his "supporters" quoted should be ashamed of their spin control. Shriver has done nothing more than spin, "cook," and manipulate statistics, much to our ultimate detriment. History will likely record Shriver's Consensus Statement failure as his biggest; and the history books will only add a footnote to his whining that his disability "must be respected" to our detriment, since he believes he "owes us nothing." We can only hope he never returns to work; between his tarnished halo, and Don Francis', Randy Shilts would likely have a field day reporting what we now are learning. I'm with former B.A.R. editor Paul Lorch: When Shriver's gone, I can finally cross of his name as an obstructionist who needed to be long gone Patrick Monette-Shaw |
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| The Pathetic Abridged "Final Report"
from the 2001 HIV Consensus Meetings PowerPoint Final Report Issued by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, July 2001 |
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In January and February 2001, two HIV Consensus Meetings were held to estimate the prevalence and incidence of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco. The January meeting focused principally on men who have sex with men, and other behavioral risk factors. The February meeting focused on intravenous drug users and heterosexuals. Draft reports from each meeting were released to the public for comment, and the two draft documents were scheduled to be “interdigitated” (to use Mike Shriver’s pompous term for “consoldiated”) into a single unabridged final report. Sadly, two and a half years later, that unabridged report was never completed nor released to the public. To place this failure in proper perspective,
you should note that the last time an official so-called “consensus”
meeting to determine the scope of HIV/AIDS in San Francisco was
held was way back in 1997, fully six years ago. Recognizing
the need to reach a new “consensus” estimate, San Francisco’s
Department of Public Health and UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute
(ARI) got together at an “Epidemiology Update Meeting,”
held on May 24, 2000. The two institutions crafted a report,
which they first leaked to the media in June 2000 — timing
the leak to the June 2000 Durban, South Africa AIDS Conference
and the Ryan White CARE Act Reauthorizaton battle that raged
throughout the summer of 2000 in an effort to to draw attention
to San Francisco’s “plight,” not to focus attention
on Africa — claiming HIV incidence would doubl in 2000,
anticipating 900 The news leaked to the media appeared in a June, 30, 2000 San Francisco Chronicle story, which included a quote from Willi McFarland, Director, HIV Seroepidemiology Unit at DPH, commenting on San Francisco’s rising HIV caseload: “These are sub-Sarahan African levels of transmission [in San Francisco].” McFarland’s comparison to the ravages facing sub-Sarahan Africa were insensitive precisely because the purported (not verified) 900 new HIV cases in San Francisco paled in comparison to the millions of cases facing Africa. Within two weeks of the Chronicle story, McFarland finally admitted to the Bay Area Reporter that the 900 new HIV infections “was not an official DPH number” and that his sub-Sarahan reference was “unfortunate.” [“Appalingly inappropriate,” rather than “unfortunate,” would have been more accurate, Mr. McFarland.] Then, on August 9, 2000 Director of Public Health Dr. Mitch Katz presented a report entitled “Response to the Updated Estimates of HIV Infection in San Francisco, 2000” at a hearing before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Finance Committee called by Board of Supervisor’s then President, Tom Ammiano. The “Response” document was merely a rehash of the of the Epidemiology Update report, and it was alternatively referred to as the “11-point Action Plan” or the “DPH Call to Action”; they all refer to the same document. By 2001, little had changed, as by the time time DPH/ARI got around around to releasing the draft report of the January Consensus Meeting for public comment, it too was merely a rehash seven months later of the 11-Point Action Plan. [Notably, many of the same data sets presented in the August 9 document were contained in the January draft report, but with many of the same tables having the actual numbers removed and not reinserted, as if the data had changed sufficiently in seven months that it all needed to be revised. When the January meeting draft report was released to the public for comment, DPH/ARI had been unable to update the data, so they simply left it out but included the skeleton tables making it clear the same tables were being used, sans data.] When the February meeting draft report was released for public comment, it too contained others of the same tables presented in the 11-Point Action Plan, and it too,had the skeleton tables sans data, as if the data had been sent out for data scrubbing and which scrubbing had not been completed during the previous seven- to 11-month period (dating from the May 2000 Epidemiology Meeting). Along with others, I submitted public testimony, and I had went through both daft reports with a fine-tooth comb. The next we heard of the pending “final HIV Consensus report,” was not a full unabridged report containing lengthy narrative. Instead, a sniveling 14-page PowerPoint presentation, containing five pages of “front” and “back” matter (title slide, meeting participants slide, acknowledgments slide, etc.) and just one slide of bullet-point narrative (not lengthy discussion or even fully-formed sentences) was released as the “Final Report.” Notably, Shriver and the other three principal authors of the PowerPoint presentation had the good sense to acknowledge that the report was an abridged version. When the PowerPoint file was released to the public in July 2001, it contained a statement that “… [this report] is still only the Abridged Final Report as we are in the final stages of completing a new and lengthy narrative to accompany the data.” Now (November 2003) we are fully two and a half-years beyond when the abridged report was released to the public and the promised unabridged report has never been issued. Given all of its massive AIDS resources, San Francisco, sadly, could apparently not reach enough of a consensus estimating HIV/AIDS incidence and prevalence to issue an unabridged report. Given Shriver’s babbling elsewhere that “San Francisco is home to the best AIDS data on the planet,” Shriver’s failure as the Mayor’s so-called AIDS Czar to negotiate the waters of consensus and successfully issue an unabridged report must be his greatest disappointment, and certainly his most visible failure. As it was, an African-American contingent at the HIV Consensus Meetings in 2001 reportedly walked out of the proceedings in protest of the data being presented; as they stormed out, Shriver is reported to have screeched — visibly distraught that his showcase meeting was falling apart before his eyes — “Wait, there are resources at stake …,” as if his principal focus was solely on the funding at stake, not the lives at stake. We’re approaching four years since the Epidemiology Update meeting was held in 2000, and San Francisco seems incapable of reaching and issuing an unabridged consensus among various so-called AIDS experts. Learn More: |
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| More on Shriver's Failures | |
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Appointed in October 2000 as Mayor Brown’s AIDS Czar, Shriver was only on the job for a year before going on disability leave in October 2001. During that year, there was plenty of time for him to have accomplished something (since the Consensus Meeting turned into such an abject failure during his first three months on the job). Indeed, both the scope of work contained in the contract between UCSF and DPH and another description of the scope of work contained on the Mayor’s web site promised a robust set of reports and initiatives Shriver was to head up and author. Nothing was ever forthcoming, however. TheLastWatch has repeatedly filed public records requests attempting to obtain the quarterly written reports Shriver were to have authored to follow up on promises made during the Mayor’s 1998 Summit on AIDS. Both the Department of Public Health and the Mayor’s press secretary, P.J. Johnston, have responded to public records requests indicating that “there are no documents responsive to your request.” In other words, the contractual deliverables outlined in the contract hiring Shriver on a half-time basis from UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute to be Brown’s “AIDS Czar” were never produced, despite the contract language. Neither DPH nor the Office of the Mayor can locate so much as a single scrap of paper containing the membership roster for the Mayor’s HIV Scientific Advisory Committee Shriver was to have pulled together. So much for a “science based” approach to HIV in San Francisco! As well, Shriver was to have served as the Mayor’s liaison to both the HIV Prevention Planning Council [a CDC-mandated community advisory body] and the HIV Health Services Planing Council (a.k.a., the Ryan White CARE Council), a separate community advisory body mandated by Congress for receipt of San Francisco’s $35 million annual award to provide HIV/AIDS healthcare services to our most vulnerable residents. For the two years he has not been at work, both Councils have lacked access to the Mayor’s office. Having attended the CARE Council meetings for over a year, TheLastWatch has noted that the Office of the Mayor has not sent a liaison to these meetings, so it remains a mystery how the Mayor’s Office keeps abreast of CARE Council issues. Because of Shriver’s many failures, San Francsico’s next mayor owes the San Francisco AIDS community a brand new AIDS Czar who is capable of handling the job. The next mayor does not owe Shriver a patronage job, and indeed, since Shriver is not a City employee, he should be replaced at once, as one of the next mayor’s first acts. |
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