In February 2013, the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA) declared bankruptcy and closed for good. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, activist Michael Petrelis asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its audit of NAPWA. He received the 516-page audit and posted it on his Petrelis Files blog earlier this week.
In the blog, Petrelis and Gay City News journalist Duncan Osborne point out aspects of the audit that they find telling. For example, in looking for details that might explain what went wrong with the historic 30-year-old organization, Osborne points out that NAPWA was already in trouble back in 2009, when its leaders approved a $300,000 budget cut.
Petrelis questions why NAPWA made HIV prevention a priority in its later years. “The answer,” Petrelis offers, “is keeping the CDC prevention dollars flowing and in the final years of its existence receiving grants from OraSure to promote HIV testing. Their constituency was supposed to be poz folks, not negative people in need of prevention of services.”
The article also notes that the last NAPWA executive director, Frank Oldham, now works at the National Medical Association, a nonprofit based in Silver Spring, Maryland, that focuses on the health needs of African Americans.
For more on why NAPWA’s demise was a sad and worrying event, click here to read journalist John-Manuel Andriote’s opinion piece on the topic.
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