TAAR is a subcommittee of AIDS ACTION NOW! which focuses on questions of access to experimental treatments, treatment information, ethical clinical trials and Federal research policy.

The major issues this committee has dealt with have been:

• to fight for compassionate release of experimental treatments and;
• to ensure that trials of these treatments are ethical and to the benefit of people living with AIDS.

TAAR has pressed both the Federal government and pharmaceutical industry to step up investment in AIDS research.

At the beginning of each meeting members exchange new information on treatments they have come across over the month.

AAN! history on this issue includes:

• occupying the offices of Bristol-Myers demanding the release of DDI in 1989;
• a post-card campaign against Abbott demanding compassionate release of Ritonivir in 1995;
• winning early release of NRRTIs in 1996 and;
• participation in negotiations around clinical trials with pharmaceutical companies.

We have also continued to badger the Federal government around the research component of its National AIDS Strategy.