Peter Staley is an American political activist, known primarily for his work in HIV/AIDS activism. As an early and influential member of ACT UP, New York, he founded both the Treatment Action Group and the educational website AIDSmeds.com. Staley is a primary figure in the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague.
Early life and education
Peter Staley was born in Sacramento, California, in 1961; the third of four children. His father was a plant manager for Procter & Gamble. Their family moved throughout the US until he was eight when his family moved to Berwyn, Pennsylvania, when his father was hired to run the PQ Corporation, based in Philadelphia. He attended Oberlin College after first studying classical piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music for a semester. He majored in economics and government, spending his junior year abroad at the London School of Economics before graduating from Oberlin in 1983. Following his graduation, he went to work for J.P. Morgan, where his brother Jes Staley was working.
Activism
Involvement with ACT UP
After observing similarities with the symptoms depicted in the made-for-TV drama An Early Frost, Staley consulted with his physician, Dr. Dan William, who diagnosed Staley with AIDS-Related Complex in 1985. In 1987, after being handed a flyer on his way to work prior to the first demonstration by ACT UP, he decided to attend the next meeting. Although he had come out to his family, Staley remained closeted at work, working as a bond trader by day and chairing ACT UP's fundraising operations by night, before coming out at work and going on disability leave. On March 24, 1988, he took part in an ACT UP demonstration on Wall Street on the first anniversary of the group. At that demonstration, he was in one of the first waves of people sitting in the street to block traffic, and was interviewed by a local TV station who broadcast his image with the caption "Peter Staley, AIDS victim." On April 25, 1989, Staley and three other activists barricaded themselves in an office at Burroughs Wellcome in Research Triangle Park, NC to protest the price of AZT. The four protesters used power tools to bolt metal plates to the door of an unoccupied office and had planned to drop a banner that would be visible from the nearby highway, Interstate 40, before authorities cut their way through a wall. The protestors then chained themselves together, and were cut apart and charged with trespassing and property damage. Staley, who at the time had been in talks with AZT developer David Barry to lower the price on the drug, would make peace with the company years later, following their $1 million donation to AIDS clinical trials programs in 1992. On September 14, 1989, Staley and six other activists staged another demonstration to protest the rising cost of AZT, this time in the New York Stock Exchange. Dressed in suits and carrying fake credentials, they chained themselves to a balcony above the trading floor before unfurling a banner that read "Sell Wellcome", drowned out the opening bell with airhorns, and dropped fake $100 bills that read, "Fuck your profiteering. We die while you play business." on the traders below. Within days, Burroughs Wellcome lowered the price of AZT by 20%. In 1989, he was part of a group that stormed the Fifth International AIDS Conference in Montreal, at the time a members-only event for doctors and HIV/AIDS researchers. They took over seats reserved for dignitaries, and released their first Treatment and Data report calling for speedier access to AIDS drugs, although coverage of the demonstration was overshadowed by the events at Tiananmen Square. The next year, Staley was a featured speaker at the Sixth International Conference on AIDS in 1990, held in San Francisco. Staley would be involved in many more demonstrations and protests, ultimately being arrested 10 times, although he does not have a criminal record due to the work of pro bono lawyers.
Involvement with TAG
In 1991, Staley founded an ACT UP activist affiliate called TAG. Formed from ACT UP's Treatment and Data Committee, the group was focused on actively working to pursue AIDS treatment solutions through activism, and working with groups that had been targeted by ACT UP, such as pharmaceutical companies. As an event to launch the birth of the group, Staley draped a giant condom over the home of North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms on September 5, 1991, protesting the position the senator had taken on AIDS-related issues. The side of the giant nylon condom replica read "A condom to stop unsafe politics - Helms is deadlier than a virus." After police arrived, the group stopped the protest, and helped remove the condom. No one was arrested, and Helms decided not to press charges. Years later, Staley would reveal that the stunt had been funded by David Geffen. TAG broke away from ACT UP to focus on protesting government agencies on working for faster drug solutions through more coordinated AIDS research efforts. At the 1992 International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, the group called for negotiations and more proactive measures than protests in order to achieve those goals. Staley later said that he regretted the split, wishing that they had been "able to keep it together as an organization."
From 1991-2004, Staley served on the board for amfAR. A nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting HIV/AIDS research, prevention, and treatment education, the group has invested more than $366 million in its various programs over the course of its history, which have spawned significant advances in the realm of the treatment and prevention of HIV. During this time, he was named to President Bill Clinton's AIDS National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development, an 18-member panel of scientists, doctors and AIDS advocates to work to speed the research for new AIDS drugs. In October 2000, he was honored by the organization as the recipient of their Award of Courage.
AIDSmeds.com
In 1999, Staley founded AIDSmeds.com, a site "dedicated to providing people living with HIV the necessary information they need to make empowered treatment decisions." It expanded to include topics including gay health, and education and resources related to gay health. In 2006, AIDSmeds.com merged with POZ, a publication for people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Staley is still with the merged organization as a blogger and advisory editor.
In 2004, Staley funded and launched an ad campaign in New York, warning of the link between crystal meth use and HIV in gay and bisexual men. A former crystal meth addict himself, Staley had ads placed on phone booths along Eighth Avenue in Chelsea that read "Huge Sale! Buy Crystal, Get HIV Free!" The controversial ads attracted attention from both supporters and detractors.
Staley and his partner, along with their dog, divide their time between rural Pennsylvania and an apartment in New York City's West Village, not far from where ACT UP first recruited him.
Controversy
According to the New York Times, "The Sanders campaign’s policy director, Warren Gunnels, attacked Staley personally on Twitter. Using scare quotes to insinuate that Staley, who once chained himself to a balcony of the New York Stock Exchange to protest high drug prices, didn’t really deserve to be called an 'activist,' Gunnels claimed that Staley had 'made a fortune from big drug companies.' As evidence, Gunnels linked to a post on a website called Stop Pharma Greed that was teeming with opposition research on some of the biggest names in AIDS activism. The post accused Staley of 'shilling for big Pharma' and taking funding from companies like DuPont Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline and Gilead Sciences. 'In short,' the post concluded, 'Staley’s livelihood since the year 2000... appears to have been wholly dependent on, or funded directly by, the drug industry.' Staley called the accusation a 'Trumpian lie,' noting that he has lived entirely on savings for the last five years. "
