San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, July 21, 1989
Randy Shilts, National Correspondent

Public health officials and AIDS patient advocacy groups immediately praised the two appointments and welcomed them as an indication that Bush intends to follow a more moderate policy on AIDS issues than former President Reagan did.

The selection of David Rogers, a professor at Cornell University Medical College, and Belinda Mason, president of the National Association of People with AIDS, completes the new 15-member panel, which will advise the White House and Congress on AIDS policy for the next two years. There are 10 members appointed by Congress and three ex-officio members from the executive branch.

Rogers served as president of the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Foundation until 1987. It was during this tenure that the foundation began its $17 million program to finance coordinated AIDS prevention and care programs in 11 cities across the United States. Rogers also serves on the New York Citizens Commission on AIDS.

Mason, 30, contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion she received in 1987 during the birth of her second child. She has since become an aggressive spokeswoman for the concerns of people with AIDS. She is the only person with AIDS on the commission.

The new National AIDS Commission was created by legislation last year that mandated the panel to study ways to implement the recommendations of former President Reagan's Commission on the HIV epidemic and to advise Congress and the president on AIDS policy.

Although the bill creating the commission ordered the group to be appointed by last December, the 10 congressional choices were completed only in May. Pressure had been mounting on Bush in recent weeks to make his long-awaited appointments so the commission could begin its work.

The names were released without comment from President Bush by the White House press office yesterday.

"Both are good appointments - it was worth the wait," said Carlton Lee of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a major AIDS lobbying group.

Representative Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, a leader in AIDS issues in Congress, called the appointments "strong, credible and important additions to the commission." Senator Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said the appointments showed "wisdom and sensitivity."

Public health officials also said the appointments were a clear signal that President Bush's inclination will be to base his AIDS policy on the advice of health experts rather than conservative political aides.

Public health officials and AIDS patient advocates were enraged two years ago when President Reagan appointed members to his AIDS commission who had strong conservative ideological credentials but little experience with AIDS. Although these members were later outvoted by the Reagan commission majority, they formed a core of opposition to proposals that have wide acceptance in the public health community.

"These appointments are very different" from Reagan's, said Dr. Mathilde Krim, co-chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research. "Now we're appointing people who have expertise in the epidemic. To the extent it gives a signal, it's a very good signal about Bush."

Under law, five of the panel's members were selected by House leadership, five by Senate leadership and two by President Bush. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski and Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan will serve as ex-officio members. Sullivan will cast the deciding vote in case of a tie.

Among the others are Representative Roy Rowland, D-Ga., the only physician serving in Congress and the sponsor of the bill that created the panel; Dr. June Osborn, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan; Dr. Don C. Des Jarlais, an expert on AIDS among intravenous drug users; Donald S. Goldman, a former president of the National Hemophilia Foundation; and Larry Kessler, founder and executive director of the Boston AIDS Action Committee.

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