CONTACTStaffCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2024 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
The Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation on Thursday asked drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb to stop running an advertisement for the company's protease inhibitor Reyataz that features two men on a beach playing backgammon under the tagline "The Word on HIV: Fight HIV Your Way," The Wall Street Journal reports. The ad, which appears in several national publications, including HIV Plus magazine, also has an audio chip that plays a simulated telephone answering machine message that says: "Hey! We're at the beach. Catch you later." AHF says the ad minimizes the seriousness of HIV disease and its treatment and warns that it could lead to a lack of concern about contracting the illness. "It says that I don't have to be careful about getting HIV because I can go to the beach and pop pills," AHF president Michael Weinstein told the Journal. Weinstein says the pharmaceutical industry in 2001 changed its advertisements for anti-HIV drugs when they were criticized for showing attractive, muscular men climbing mountains and running marathons, which AIDS activists said minimized the seriousness of HIV disease. He says BMS should similarly review and change its Reyataz campaign. A BMS spokesman said the company strives to "depict HIV-positive people in a responsible way" and that the company takes "how people are portrayed in our advertising very seriously."
Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?
Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!
Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Meet all 37 of the queer women in this season's WNBA
April 17 2024 11:24 AM
Here are the 15 gayest travel destinations in the world: report
March 26 2024 9:23 AM
21+ steamy photos of Scotland’s finest gay men in Elska Glasgow
February 01 2024 10:07 PM
More Than 50 of Our Favorite LGBTQ+ Moms
May 12 2024 11:44 AM
Conjoined twins Lori Schappell and trans man George Schappell dead at 62
April 27 2024 6:13 PM
Latest Stories
Kamala Harris rides wave of Democratic energy at kickoff event in Wisconsin
July 23 2024 3:36 PM
'Devastated:' A six-week abortion ban will go into effect in Iowa next week
July 23 2024 2:28 PM
Four hours, 44,000 Black women, and one Zoom call
July 23 2024 2:17 PM
Record 1.2 million people show out for Cologne’s Pride parade
July 23 2024 10:51 AM
Here's how far-right activist Leonard Leo helped fund Bud Light boycott
July 23 2024 10:27 AM
Elon Musk’s comments about his trans daughter prove why she doesn’t speak to him
July 23 2024 9:16 AM
Nancy Pelosi endorses Kamala Harris for president
July 22 2024 4:07 PM
Charli XCX declares Kamala Harris IS brat & our next President's campaign agrees
July 22 2024 3:08 PM