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From: Rob.Bates@p1.f381.n634.z3.fidonet.org (Rob Bates)
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Subject: Australian AIDS News
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Date: 7 Dec 89 08:07:10 GMT
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PAYOUT "DISCRIMINATES AGAINST GAYS"

AIDS Groups Slam Haemophilia Trust Fund

[Reproduced with permission from Melbourne Star Observer #110, Friday 1  
December 1989, (C) 1989 Melbourne Star Observer. All Rights Reserved.]

The recent announcement of a Federal Government seeding grant of $13.5 million  
to set up a trust fund to assist those infected with HIV through blood products  
has been resoundingly attacked by the major organisations representing people  
with AIDS.

The fund is to be called the Medically Acquired HIV/AIDS Trust Fund. It will be  
available to alleviate special financial hardship due to HIV infection only for  
those, primarily haemophiliacs, who have contracted the virus from treatment  
with infected blood products before screening was introduced in 1985.

Of the estimated 15,000 to 25,000 Australians infected with HIV, fewer than  
1,000 will be eligible for financial assistance from the fund.

David Stephens, a spokesperson for People Living With AIDS (PLWA) Victoria told  
MSO that the setting up of the fund "re-inforces the notions of guilt and  
innocence, and is a barrier to genuine co-operation and support between all  
infected people.

"All people infected experience difficulties as a result of HIV. Any trust fund  
set up for infected people should recognise this and be available to everyone  
and not discriminate on the basis of the means of infection," he said.

NSW PLWA spokesperson David Arris was even more forthright in his condemnation  
of the scheme.

"The decision is a blatant form of discrimination against the vast majority of  
of HIV infected people in Australia," he said.

"The decision is obviously one made on the eve of an election in an attempt to  
quell dissatisfaction amongst those groups demanding special priveleges and who  
receive favorable treatment by press and society generally."

A joint statement from the AIDS Council of NSW and the Bobby Goldsmith  
Foundation (a NSW charitable trust like the Victorian David Williams Fund) also  
criticised the payout.

"Existing charitable trusts, like the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation, do not  
discriminate between the way people may have acquired HIV," it said.

The statement conceded that some people with AIDS might suffer special  
financial hardship as a result of HIV infection and that these hardships may  
not be adequately covered by existing AIDS charities. But, it said, any special  
government assistance and funding should be "accessible to all people with HIV  
and not limited to one particular group."

A spokesperson for the Haemophilia Foundation of Australia, Bob Williams, said  
that the Foundation was "delighted" at the decision.

"The trust fund was set-up in response to submissions by the Haemophilia  
Foundation," he said. "It's been a long haul for us. It's taken four years."

Wiliams said that the Foundation did not see the setting-up of the Fund as at  
all discriminatory, but said that Haemophiliacs with AIDS represented a special  
group with special needs.

"Here we have something different from other groups. People with haemophilia  
are already living with one life-threatening disorder, and they have no option  
but to use the blood products available."

Williams said the Foundation did not believe the new charitable trust should be  
available to non-hemophiliac people with AIDS.

"It's for other groups to make representations on that. We did our own."

Williams denied that the Foundation was supporting the current efforts of 31  
haemophiliacs who are seeking financial compensation by suing the Red Cross  
Blood Bank and a number of Victorian and NSW hospitals in the Federal Court.

"The Foundation is neutral on the question of litigation," he said.

--  
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