ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 31, 1996 TAG: 9605310034
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
IT'S A SIGN of the times - and of warming relations between AIDS activists and pharmaceutical companies.
AIDS activists who once hurled scorn at drug companies will share space with them starting today at the first AIDS consumer fair, an event that shows how thoroughly the disease has moved into the mainstream.
In a convention hall used for boat and car shows, the Poz Life Expo will feature 80 corporate marketers plugging medicines, mineral water, vitamins and veggie burgers while an HIV-positive band plays country and western tunes.
Two floors below at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, activists, doctors and patients will hold 70 seminars on improving the quality of life for people with AIDS. Dating, safe sex, pregnancy, discrimination, self-defense and insurance are among the topics.
The free two-day event is funded largely by a handful of major pharmaceutical companies and sponsored by Poz, a 2-year-old glossy magazine that caters to the AIDS community.
It shows how AIDS, once considered a disease that afflicted only those on the fringes, now reaches all parts of society.
The expo also illustrates a warming of relations between AIDS activists and the companies that develop drugs to treat the disease.
In the past, militant groups have staged loud demonstrations, carried makeshift coffins and held ``die-ins'' to protest what they call drug company price-gouging.
Conflicts still exist, but many corporations are more enlightened, said Mike Shriver, a spokesman for the Washington-based National Association of People with AIDS. Instead of having their salespeople deal strictly with doctors, some companies have appointed liaisons to the AIDS community who explain how to properly take their drugs and discuss side effects, he said.
``Companies had to learn how to deal with a patient community that is far more willing than most to take control over the standards of care and the way it is informed about that care,'' he said.
Nonetheless, Shriver said he plans to attend the expo as a watchdog against deceptive marketing hype.
Arthur Caplan, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, said there's nothing inherently unethical about corporate sponsorship of the expo, but he urged caution:
``Corporations build playgrounds, they support the opera and many things that wouldn't be there without them; but at the same time they have their interests, and these may not necessarily be in conformance with what the AIDS community needs.''
Caplan said if the event is to be credible, the marketing and educational seminars must be kept physically separate and the corporations must have no influence over the seminar speakers and topics. Sponsors said they've done this.
Drug companies took pains to play down the expo's marketing opportunities, preferring to describe it as a way to educate patients.
Merck & Co. is among the exhibitors introducing a new class of AIDS-fighting drugs called protease inhibitors that have been shown to dramatically reduce the level of the virus in the patient's body.
``There are just a whole host of questions that people have, and we go to places where there are opportunities for people to ask questions,'' said Merck spokeswoman Jan Weiner.
The expo marks a milestone for Poz magazine founder and executive editor Sean Strub, who has made a profitable business out of AIDS activism since he was diagnosed with the HIV virus in the early 1980s.
Strub, who now has AIDS, owns a direct marketing firm, Strubco Inc., that raises money for AIDS activist groups and helps companies sell products to patients. He also owns Community Prescription Service, a mail order pharmacy specializing in AIDS drugs.
Strub, who has been criticized by activists for his financial ties to drug companies, acknowledges that the expo could result in more business for his companies and advertising in his magazine.
A larger goal, he said, is to give often-aloof drug makers an opportunity to meet face-to-face with the people taking their drugs.
``I hope they will have a better understanding of what it is like to live with the disease,'' including the painful side effects of drugs, he said. ``They will see lives as they are, not as constrained by stereotypes.''
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Don Hurwitz prepares bags to be given out at theby CNBfirst consumer AIDS fair Thursday in New York. The free two-day
event offers seminars and product information.