October 21

October 21, 2004

Mr. Tommy Thompson

Secretary of Health

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

200 Independence Avenue, S.W.

Washington, D.C. 20201

Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH

DirectorCenters for Disease Control and Prevention

Administrator, ATSDR

Atlanta, Georgia

Mr. Scott H. Evertz

Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NWWashington, DC 20500

Dear Sirs and Madam:

In the exercise of our constitutional rights we are officially asking your offices to proceed and take immediate action regarding the grievance contained in this letter.

As openly HIV+, gay men we are demanding the immediate cease and desist of the inuendos and insults that the Mayor of San Juan, Mr. Jorge Santini, has made against the GLBTT community, specifically men who have sex with men. These insults create hostility against us, making our fight against HIV/AIDS much more difficult and unbearable. They harm us.

Mayor Santini is the Grantee of the Ryan White Care Act funds destined for the treatment of injection drug users, heterosexual men and women, adolescents and the focal group of men who have sex with men (MSM) in the San Juan Emergency Municipality Area.

In his current campaign Mr. Santini has been making public statements against gay men, many of which have been published in the island’s major newspapers. His counterpart for the post of Mayor in next November 2, 2004, Mr. Eduardo Bhatia, has been accused of being a homosexual by him.

Mr. Bhatia is currently married, but the insults against his person continue. These actions affect us directly because they influence the community against us, creating a very unstable environment.

For such reasons we are constantly discriminated against, sorrounded by hostilility. Our struggle against HIV/AIDS has become much more difficult to endure because we feel menaced and unsafe.

We believe that Mayor Santini should not continue as grantee of the Ryan White funds destined for our treatments and services, when he openly states and acts biasly against people who have our sexual preference. Worse even, he is surrounded by people that also publicly insult and diminish us as citizens, clearly violating our rights. Furthermore, the contract given to the pharmaceutical distributor in charge of supplying medicines for the “Programa SIDA San Juan”, (which has been operating without electric power, with electric plants, for more than a month now, risking both patients and employees to harmful bacteria), has been denounced as being illegal because this company’s owners, (Borschow), made an illegal contribution to the current candidate to the governorship, Mr. Pedro Rosselló, also of Mr. Santini’s party, the New Progressive Party.

The Ryan White Care Act Law was instituted by the Congress of the United States in order to protect people who live with HIV/AIDS against discrimination, stigma and prejudice. The situation that is currently ocurring in these pre-election days is a violation of the law by someone who wants to continue in power after November 2, 2004.

In Puerto Rico we also have Law #349, the Bill of Rights of People Living with HIV/AIDS. This law also protects PLWHIV/AIDS against discrimination in every possible manifestation, including sexual preference.

Based in these two laws we are taking legal action against Mayor Santini. We are certain that our community will not receive proper services if the administration of funds and resources continues in the hands of someone who openly discriminates against us as HIV+ gay men. Today, the biggest community based organization that served the MSM community closed in bankruptcy, partially because funds where not received in due time.

We make a plea for justice to all people who are really concerned and ask you for help to survive in the midst of a very critical, tense and difficult situation. These laws must be respected. Anything less will be a clear violation of our constitutional rights.