MEDIA ADVISORY - view photos and video shortly after the action is done at www.healthgap.org/mdg

CONTACT: Ilana Berger (347) 645-4255

David Thorpe (646) 210-1805

DATE: September 20, 2010

AIDS Activists at World Summit in NYC Protest Obama for "Broken Promises that Kill"

Group demands funding for universal access to treatment for AIDS to end pandemic

Bearing thousands of empty pill bottles symbolizing the lack of access to medication, over 100 people -many living with HIV/AIDS-will stage a protest connected to the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York City. As world leaders debate progress on the anti-poverty program they created 10 years ago, activists will denounce politicians, especially President Obama,for failing to meet the goal of universal access to lifesaving AIDS treatment by 2010.

The group will highlight the fact that globally AIDS kills two million people -including 60,000 mothers - each year, and has killed 25 million people since the early 1980s. Despite world leaders' pledge to provide universal access to treatment by 2010, only a third of the 15 million people who need AIDS drugs currently get them. The activists will call on President Obama to live up to his campaign promises by pledging $50 billion for 5 years to fight global AIDS.

What: March for funding to fight Global AIDS

Where: Meet at 42nd and Third Avenue, New York City

When: 11:00 am Monday, September 20th

Who: ACT UP Philadelphia, ACT UP/NY, Health GAP, Housing Works, NYC AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) / Voices Of Community Advocates & Leaders (VOCAL), and Philly Global AIDS Watchdogs

People living with HIV/AIDS will be available to speak to the press

Visuals include giant helium balloons bearing the faces of President Obama and G8 world leaders

"AIDS activists worked hard to elect Barack Obama because he promised to fully fund the fight against AIDS," said Matthew Kavanagh of Health GAP. "In this election season, we're not about political parties - we're about
keeping people alive. We want to push Obama to keep his amazing campaign promises. We don't want Obama to be the president who chose not to defeat AIDS when it was possible - we want him to be the president who put us on track to defeat AIDS."

This protest part of a Global Week of Action, including a simultaneous protest in Philadelphia, to demand full funding for global AIDS, as called for by South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.

Recently, these groups organized massive protests at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna

http://takeanumber.org/act/

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