Twelve members of Congress, including Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), have requested that the Health and Human Services (HHS) administration provide them with a list of individuals from organizations that receive any federal funds that attended July's International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson was noisily heckled by members of more than a dozen AIDS service organizations while giving a speech at the conference. The protesters handed out flyers signed by twelve organizations criticizing the US for not spending enough money on AIDS in developing countries. While the letter to HHS was primarily to complain about the Members' perception of a slighting of religion at the conference, they also asked for the total amount of federal money that went into the conference. There is a fear that the members may be looking for a way to retaliate against federal grantees who spoke out against US policy. In a Washington Post article on the request, Terje Anderson, Director of the National Association of People With AIDS, sums up this fear: "Groups that do advocacy and get public money are always concerned that there's an awkwardness in that situation. But I can't think of another time there's been talk of retaliation." While federal grantees are prohibited from lobbying with federal funds, there are no such restrictions on private funds. The request may be enough to have a chilling effect on the advocacy activities of federal grantees. Claude Allen, deputy secretary of HHS, while saying the department does not want to engage in a witch hunt, is quoted by the Post as saying that protestors "need to think twice before preventing a Cabinet-level official" from speaking. Allen fears that Congress may mandate that HHS not participate in future conferences because the protesters did not allow Secretary Thompson to deliver his speech.