Miami Herald; Thursday, December 2, 1993
Angie Cannon; Herald Washington Bureau

"Thirty recommendations of the National Commission on AIDS still sitting on a shelf, gathering dust in your White House, Bill, while me and my community are dying in ever increasing numbers," shouted a member of ACT-UP, an AIDS activist organization.

"Slick Willy," the protester said. "It's time to put or shut up." The dramatic interruption of Clinton's World AIDS Day speech at Georgetown University Medical Center captured the frustration that some AIDS activists feel about the president's record on an epidemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and infected one million others with the virus.

With increased AIDS funding, an AIDS czar and a health reform plan promising coverage for uninsured AIDS patients, Clinton is light years ahead of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, many AIDS activists say.

But at a time when AIDS seems to be fading from public consciousness as a priority issue, the activists say they want more leadership and passion from a president whose campaign last year raised their hopes and expectations.

"Is it enough? No," said Dan Bross, executive director of AIDS Action Council, a national lobbying group. "Is it more than the last 12 years? Yes. Do we need more? Obviously, yes."

On Wednesday, an unruffled Clinton allowed the ACT-UP protester to shout for a minute or two before campus police led him out of the auditorium. Clinton calmed others in the Georgetown audience.

In tears, Elizabeth Glaser, the HIV-infected wife of actor Paul Michael Glaser, who lost a 7-year-old daughter to AIDS and has a 9-year-old infected son, cried for the man to "Sit down."

"It's all right," Clinton said, standing in front of panels of the AIDS quilt. "It's all right. Part of my job is to be a lightning rod. The fact that he's in here expressing his frustration to me means at least that they expect me to do something, which is a step forward."

Clinton pointed to these steps his administration has taken toward combating AIDS:

* Increased research funding 21 percent to $1.3 billion; treatment dollars, known as the Ryan White Care Act, are up 66 percent to $579 million; prevention money is up 9 percent to $543 million.

* Proposed health-care coverage, including prescription drugs, for uninsured AIDS patients and those who now would lose their coverage if they couldn't work. About 27 percent of AIDS patients lack insurance.

* Named Kristine Gebbie as AIDS policy coordinator in June. Activists criticized her appointment as delayed.

* Created a panel that will speed the development of AIDS drugs.

* Required all federal employees to attend AIDS education classes.

"We are marshaling more resources and making more efforts," Clinton said. "But there must be other things we can do."

For one thing, the president said more needs to be done about prevention education.

"What we still need to do is to convince people who do the preventing that they ought to do it where the people are who need the information," Clinton said. "We must, we must, we must convince more people to reach the children where the children are: in the schools."

Before his Georgetown speech, Clinton visited AIDS patients at the university hospital. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders donned aprons and dished out scrambled eggs and sausages to homeless men with AIDS.

The Postal Service unveiled a 29-cent stamp, featuring a red ribbon and saying AIDS Awareness. And lights at the White House were dimmed in the evening.

"Dimming the lights is cute," said Larry Kessler, executive director of the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts and a member of the National Commission on AIDS. "It won't slow the epidemic down by one millimeter. We need bold, creative, consistent leadership, and Clinton still isn't there yet.

"Bush and Reagan put little Band-Aids on the problem. Now, we have a better supply of Band-Aids, but they are still Band-Aids."

CAPTION: GRAPHIC, PHOTO Participants in Philadelphia's Day Without Art gathering drape the 'Love' sculpture in JFK Plaza (a); Bill CLINTON is greeted by AIDS patient Larry Singletary; graphic: AIDS BECOMES NO. 1 KILLER

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