#burroughs wellcome

[humanoidhistory]

Interior views of the Paul Rudolph-designed headquarters for Burroughs Wellcome in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, opened in 1972.

[silentoatmeal]

Brainstorm (1983)

[brutalistinteriors]

Elion-Hitchings Building by Paul Rudolph. Demolished January 2021.

[nelc]

Burroughs Wellcome headquarters building in Durham, North Carolina. Due to be demolished.

[outweek30]

AIDS Activists Storm Stock Exchange, Halting Trading High Price of Burroughs' AZT Under Fire

NEW YORK [September 24, 1989] — For the first time in history, trading at the New York Stock Exchange was interrupted by protesters last Thursday, when seven AIDS activists slipped past security guards and delayed the start of trading by five minutes with a loud and vibrant demonstration.

Shortly after the seven were arrested and taken into custody, at approximately 11:10 am, a crowd — at one point swelling to over 1500 people — began arriving for a raucous, ear-splitting demonstration in front of the Exchange at 30 Broad Street in Manhattan's Financial District.

The protest, organized by ACT UP, targeted the drug company Burroughs Wellcome, maker of Actified, Sudafed, Neosporin and a host of other over-the-counter drugs. Burroughs holds an exclusive patent on the anti-viral drug AZT, which costs individuals an average of $8000 per year, making it the most expensive drug in history. It remains the only federally-approved AIDS treatment proven significantly effective in slowing the progression of AIDS.

Activists demanded the drug be made available free to the millions of people in the U.S. who are now infected with HIV, the virus associated with AIDS.

"There is a myth out there that we're robber barons, ripping people off," David Barry, vice president, research development and medical affairs for Burroughs Wellcome told the Wall Street Journal. "It would be theoretically possible for us to give away all our drug," he continued. "Everyone would get it for a while, and then we'd go bankrupt."

Fake Name Tags

At approximately 9:25 a.m. seven men, all dressed in suits, entered the Stock Exchange using fake Bears Stearns name tags. According to former bond trader Peter Staley, who is the chair of ACT UP's fundraising committee, he and four others then quickly went up to the VIP balcony which overlooks the trading floor, immediately chaining themselves to a bannister and handcuffing themselves to each other. Staley says he looked at the clock at that moment and noticed that it was 9:29:45.

The Exchange opens precisely at 9:30 am, when there is usually a surge of trading. Staley said the five unfurled a banner which read "Sell Wellcome" and hung it from the balcony. They then used loud emergency marine fog horns, attempting to make hearing anything else impossible. Although the trading boards and ticker machines did not stop, it was impossible to verbally communicate and, therefore, most transactions were halted, according to several traders who were on the floor. The Stock Exchange, however, reported that trading was not interrupted.

Times: No Story

Two of the seven protestors had positioned themselves below the balcony and immediately began taking photographs (using cameras which they had smuggled in) when the banner was unfurled. They then quickly walked outside and gave the film to other activists who brought it to the Associated Press, which sent the photo and the story across the country. Reports of the demonstration appeared in all of New York's dailies, except The New York Times, which has come under attack recently for what activists have called its spotty, inaccurate AIDS coverage. The story ran on the front page of the Wall Street Journal; it was also covered by national television networks and most local network affiliates.

Staley said that the chained, hand-cuffed group on the balcony began throwing fake dollar bills out onto the floor, imitating a demonstration by Abbie Hoffman nearly 20 years ago (Hoffman had used real money). The bills were reportedly printed with the slogan, "Fuck your profiteering, we're dying while you play business."

While security guards tried to remove the protestors, traders and brokers surged toward the balcony in large numbers, booing and jeering, according to Staley. "They were angry. They were screaming things like 'Mace the faggots!' and they were throwing wads of paper at us," he told OutWeek.

"You've Seen Faggots Before"

Eva Andersen, a Swedish tourist who was on a tour of the Exchange, said there was a panic on the trading floor at that moment. "It was a bit frightening," she said. "They [the traders] were rushing at them [the protestors]." There was lots of anger and booing." Andersen said the visitors were immediately hurried out by guards. Robert Hilferty, one of the activists who had taken photographs and then walked back into the Exchange, described the traders as “an angry, mobilized mob."

"They were waving their fists, while one trader was yelling to the others: ‘you've seen faggots before, get back to trading!'"

The guards eventually removed the protesters from the Exchange. But at that point, a "witch hunt" ensued, according to Hilferty. "Some traders were looking on the floor for outsiders." Hilferty said a trader looked at him and yelled, "Who the fuck are you!" and ran for him. Within seconds, Hilferty claims, he was being chased by dozens of "blood-thirsty and violent" traders.

Hilferty, a filmmaker, and performance artist Richard Elovich, the other demonstrator who had remained on the Stock Exchange floor, were eventually arrested.

Ear Plugs and Cotton

The other five arrested were: Lee Arsenault, a clothing importer and a self-identified person with AIDS; Gregg Bordowitz, a video producer with the Gay Men's Health Crisis, who has AIDS Related Complex; Scott Robbe, a film producer; James McGrath, a bar owner; and Staley. They were each charged with a Class B misdemeanor for criminal trespass, a Class A misdemeanor for criminal possession of a forged instrument and Class A misdemeanor for criminal impersonation. The seven were held by police for several hours before being released.

About an hour after the men were taken away, a planned demonstration organized by ACT UP took place outside the Stock Exchange. The group, which grew from several hundred to over 1500, set off hundreds of fog horns which echoed through the narrow streets of lower Manhattan, drawing people as high up as the 30th floors of buildings to their windows. Protestors came prepared with ear plugs and cotton, which they also provided to members of the press.

Inside the Exchange, dozens of workers were pressed against the glass doors watching the activities. Some workers later said they didn't leave for lunch for fear that the crowd, which had taken up the entire street, might attack them.

The demonstration was planned to coincide with similar demonstrations in London, where Burroughs' parent company is based, and where the company's stock is traded, and in San Francisco, where the company's major U.S. warehouse is located.

— Michelangelo Signorile, OutWeek Magazine No. 14, September 24, 1989, p. 10.

[periodically80s]

[outweek30]

In San Francisco, activists race through drug stores, busily stickering boxes of Actifed, Sudafed, Neosporin and Polysporin with stickers that read "Queers Against Profiteers." In Seattle, people with AIDS planned to be out in full force at last weekend's AIDS walk urging the lesbian and gay community to "boycott Burroughs." Students at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio are pushing the college administration to ban all Wellcome products from the college pharmacies and infirmaries. In Orlando shifts of people sit in an office and call Burroughs' toll-free number all day long, haranguing the office of President T.E. Haigler.

And in Kansas City activist Mark Cheney spent 23 hours in jail, was charged with a Class D felony for property destruction and, under Missouri law, faces a maximum of one to five years in state prison for allegedly defacing $700 worth of Burroughs products with stickers in a local drug store.

Among other actions, a national boycott of Burroughs Wellcome's over-the-counter products, which include Actified, Sudafed, Neosporin, Polysporin and Empirin, is proceeding at a rapid speed, despite the announcement that Burroughs has cut the price of AZT by 20 percent.

[...]

"20 percent Is nothing!" said Charles Franchino, a member of ACT UP/New York. "We'll keep the pressure on until the price comes down much more. We Just simply don't trust Burroughs. The last time they dropped the price [of AZT] they raised the price of Acyclovir." Acyclovir is another anti-viral used by people with AIDS.

Franchino said he mailed thousands of stickers which read "AIDS Profiteer" to activists in over 30 cities across the country. The activists then forwarded them through an elaborate networking system to lesbian, gay and AIDS activists in dozens of smaller cities and towns. People are being urged to enter pharmacies and supermarkets and put the stickers on all Burroughs Wellcome products.

[...] Chip Duckett, a member of ACT UP and a gay party promoter at the Manhattan nightclub Mars [said,] "You can also tie up their fax machine by sending through black paper with white lettering that says 'AIDS profiteer' — black paper takes longer to print and it also uses up all of their ink. Or you can use a long sheet of computer paper or connect three sheets of paper together in the fax machine so that it just keeps going around and around. The only way for them to stop it is to take apart the machine."

Duckett, promoter of Mars' regular Sunday night gay events, put information about the boycott on all 10,000 club invitations he mailed and passed out last week. In addition, he made regular announcements at the club last Sunday, explaining why people should boycott all Burroughs Wellcome over-the-counter products. Performers on all four floors ripped up boxes of Actifed, Sudafed and Neosporin before they went on, and signs explaining the boycott in detail were placed on bathroom walls throughout the club. Boxes of the over-the-counter drugs (mostly donated from people's medicine cabinets) filled all of the urinals. "Burroughs is pissing on the gay community," Duckett announced to the crowd. "So we're giving you a chance to piss on Burroughs Wellcome."

— Michelangelo Signorile, OutWeek Magazine No. 15, October 1, 1989, p. 13.

[outweek30]

One recent Sunday night at Mars, promoter Chip Duckett had no idea what he was getting himself into when he decided to have two lesbian go-go girls in the basement (recognizing the hundreds of women who come to dance).

Late that night, the two go-goers, Garance Franke-Ruta (who is OutWeek's lesbian cover girl this week) and Sydney Pokorny, all hot and sweaty from dancing, decided to strip and cool off in the showers which — strangely enough — happen to be off the basement dance floor. Two other women joined them, and everyone cheered as the women came out, breathless and dripping.

As some of the lesbians went to Miss Perfidia's wacky third floor to dry off and listen to Yma Sumac, someone pulled out a few magic markers — and suddenly the girls were writing their most secret desires on each other's bodies. The men watched in awe, but soon they and other dykes found their shirts being lifted and "Boycott Sudafed" and "Free AZT" being scrawled across their chests (one boy even had "Dyke Tyke" written across his face). By the time Mars closed, a dozen dykes and fags has become walking artwork — and even a few telephone numbers were scrawled onto places where I'm sure the wearer could only read them by using a mirror.

Alas, before closing, one of OutWeek's roving shutterbugs, Ben Thornberry, took his own shirt off and caught up with a few of the topless women who had gone down to the first floor to work their bodies.

— Liz Tracey, "Uncovering Life on Mars," OutWeek Magazine No. 15, October 1, 1989, p. 44.