Conservative to Co-Chair Bush AIDS Panel
Wednesday, 23 January 2002

http://www.datalounge.com/datalounge/news/record.html?record=18701

WASHINGTON -- The Bush White House is preparing to name an aggressive advocate of abstinence over condom use to its AIDS advisory council, the Washington Post reports.

Former U.S. Rep Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said Tuesday the administration has asked him to co-chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS with Louis Sullivan, who served as secretary of health and human services under his father, George H.W. Bush.

Dubbing previous AIDS prevention strategies a failure, Coburn told the Post that new approaches need to be adopted. "Condoms are fairly effective against HIV if people will use them," he said. "We have to ask a question: Are people going to use them? ... We have had a strategy that says that's the answer ... and HIV infection is going up."

Coburn has been an HIV prevention advocate for years but has stood behind policies that horrified mainstream advocates lobbying for incresed federal funding and prevention efforts.

In March of 1997, Coburn introduced a bill in Congress calling for the creation of a national registry for people who test positive to HIV, requirement of sex offenders and pregnant mothers to submit to mandatory HIV screening, and mandatory notification for partners of people who test positive for the virus.

The proposal had an iron enforcement mechanism which many groups, including the National Governor's Association (NGA), said was indefensible. It said if a state refused to comply with all provisions in the Coburn bill, the state will forfeit federal Medicaid assistance. For smaller states, like Rhode Island and Vermont this would mean the loss of $200 - $550 million in federal payouts. For states like New York, the cost of non-compliance would have run in excess of $12 billion.

Despite his conservative stance on many issues relating to voting record, Coburn said his personal views would not dictate his work. He said he would direct the AIDS council based on science and public health, not any political agenda.

"It shouldn't be based on someone's political philosophy," he told reporters. "It ought to be based on what's going to work."

HIV prevention advocates in Washington are uneasy. The sentiments of AIDS Action's Darin Johnson were typical. "Will the committee be a true honest voice," he asked, "or is a council being put together that can basically give a public green light for moving a lot of conservative HIV policies?"

-- Editor