Activists criticise ACON after HIV rise
Image: Photo: ACON/Facebook
Independent gay activists and HIV/AIDS lobbyists have called on ACON to change tack after data from NSW Health showed a big jump in HIV infections.
The latest HIV surveillance data showed 409 people were diagnosed with HIV in NSW during 2012 – up 24 per cent on 2011, when 330 new cases of the virus were recorded.
Critics say the figures reflect badly on ACON, the main body responsible for HIV prevention campaigns in NSW.
The organisation, formerly known as the AIDS Council of NSW, no longer calls itself an “AIDS Council” but has retained the ACON acronym and receives over $10 million annually from the State Government for HIV and STI prevention among gay men.
The Australian arm of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), one of the world’s oldest HIV/AIDS advocacy groups, claimed ACON’s publicly funded HIV prevention campaigns did not provide honest, explicit information.
“They’re placing too much emphasis on antiretroviral medication and not enough on safe sex and condoms,” said Tony Pincombe from New ACT UP.
“The message they’re sending is if you get HIV, it doesn’t really matter, you just take some pills.
“What ACON doesn’t talk about is the side effects these pills can have … including uncontrollable diarrhea, lipoatrophy, lipodystrophy, liver failure, kidney failure and bone problems.”
HIV/AIDS activist Shayne Chester agreed, urging ACON to adopt more explicit HIV prevention campaigns.
“HIV-negative gays … need to know the realities of living with HIV. The HIV Futures study and other studies show about a third of all Australian HIV-positive people live beneath the breadline because they are too ill to work,” said Mr Chester.
“In education on the dangers of drink driving, speeding, binge drinking, smoking and so on, the campaigns are very graphic and explicit in the information they provide about consequences. The HIV campaigns [are not].”
Prominent gay activist Gary Burns went further, calling on the State Government to pull the plug on its recurrent funding for ACON, and bring HIV/AIDS prevention directly under the remit of NSW Health.
“According to ACON’s latest annual report, their total expenditure in 2011/2012 was $13,220,411, with only $769,629 – less than six per cent – spent on programs and services,” said Mr Burns.
“Where’s the other 94 per cent going? It’s going on admin, salaries, travel junkets and self-congratulatory piss-ups. ACON is not doing its job properly, it’s a leech on NSW taxpayers and it’s time this leech was squashed.”
But ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill said the figures quoted by Mr Burns did not include service provision costs inherent in other areas of expenditure.
“It is incorrect to claim that only $769,629 is spent on programs and services,” said Mr Parkhill.
“ACON spends about 80 per cent of our operating budget on directly providing programs and services for our clients and communities.
“The biggest program and service delivery expense we incur is the cost of employing our staff, without whom we would not be able to deliver our programs and services.”
Mr Parkhill said all ACON staff – apart from those in internal IT, HR and finance services – were directly involved in delivering programs and services.
He said ACON was developing a range of responses to the most recent HIV notification data, and would release the “ACON Strategic Plan” and “a detailed HIV Action Plan” within the next two weeks.
NSW Health referred questions on the matter back to ACON.
