AIDS foundation calls for boycott of Hershey chocolate

    Buy your valentine chocolates anywhere but the Hershey Company, says the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

    AIDS advocates are sounding a call to boycott one of Pennsylvania’s best-known companies.

    Buy your valentine chocolates anywhere but the Hershey Company, says the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

    The campaign is a response to the Milton Hershey School’s decision to deny admission to a teenage boy who is HIV positive. The board of the school for underprivileged children overlaps with the board of the Hershey Company and it says the move was meant to protect the health and safety of its other live-in students.

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    That decision is “alarmist” and unacceptable, said Ged Kenslea of the foundation based in Los Angeles.

    “To see that it is coming from a brand that is American as can be, or a school affiliated with something as American as apple pie and baseball is really a incredibly bad reflection on this company,” Kenslea said Tuesday.

    The AIDS Healthcare Foundation plans to continue the boycott for Valentine’s Day and through Easter.

    The organization has donated money to the Philadelphia law center suing the Milton Hershey School on behalf of the teenager denied admission.

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