Déjà Vu

“Kids Innocent Victims in AIDS Fight”

-- AP headline, October 17

She’s the Ultimate

“These figures mean that new treatments have been very effective in extending the lives [of people] who already have HIV -- but they do not mean that we have significantly reduced HIV transmission. Our ultimate goal is to prevent the estimated 40,000 new HIV infections that occur each year.”

-- Needle-exchange naysayer and health secretary Donna Shalala, Portland’s Just Out, October 16


Fisher Foul

“We [my lover and I] were taught by [AIDS activist] Mary Fisher to simply not answer those questions [about whether we’re HIV positive or not]. It’s the scarlet-letter mentality. We need to set the precedent that it doesn’t matter.”

-- Gay former Republican Congressman Steve Gunderson, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 4



Frum the Heart

“ACT UP urged its followers to face illness not with courage and faith, but with complaints and wild accusations -- to think of disease as a man-made evil, like segregation. If science is unable instantly to cure you, it only shows [that] the government that funds it is callous and cruel.”

-- Columnist David Frum, The Toronto Sun, September 26


Gap Smear

“The president, with his staining of the dress (”On me, not in me“) and his use of a dildo (albeit a nicotine-filled one), deserves to become a poster child for the practice of safe sex.”

-- Adam York, Bay Area Reporter Letters, September 24