San Francisco Chronicle - Saturday, September 26, 1992

Formed by Congress in August 1989, the bipartisan commission has been gently stepping up its criticism of national AIDS policy almost since its founding. The criticism grew pointed three months ago, when the commission's chairwoman, Dr. June Osborne, blasted the president for lack of leadership. "The sad fact is that this is an epidemic of historic proportions which has not been met by appropriately historic measures," she said.

Johnson's departure from the AIDS commission comes at a particularly hard time for the commission itself, which last month laid off half its staff because of money problems. The commission had been operating this year on a budget of $2.5 million, but in June the congressional General Accounting Office issued an unexpected ruling that barred the commission from spending $750,000 left over from fiscal year 1991. That slashed the organization's budget by 30 percent.

As a result of budget cuts, the commission has had to drop several of its projects, including a study of the link between AIDS and tuberculosis.

PANEL REPLACED EARLIER ONE

The National Commission on AIDS was created as a successor to the Presidential Commission on the HIV Epidemic, formed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Part of the mandate of the new commission was to monitor implementation of nearly 600 recommendations issued by the Reagan panel.

But the fate of the National Commission on AIDS, like that of its predecessor, has been to make high profile deliberations, issue reports and recommendations and see those recommendations largely ignored.

President Reagan's AIDS commission, headed by Admiral James Watkins, surprised its detractors by issuing a report in 1988 that was deeply critical of the nation's response to the epidemic. The newer national commission, with five representatives named by the Senate, five by the House and five by the president, has been no less critical.

Johnson's resignation comes on the first anniversary of the release of the commission's most ambitious work, a list of 30 steps its members said were necessary to meet the challenge of AIDS.

This list has become an issue in the presidential campaign, with Bill Clinton asserting that he would carry out the recommendations while President Bush has not.

The recommendations would require substantial resources and political will to achieve. The panel's call for universal health coverage, for example, echoes similar cries that have gone unanswered since the Truman administration. The call to pay for drug abuse treatment whenever an addict seeks it comes at a time when even limited drug treatment programs are being slashed for lack of money.

ADMINISTRATION'S ACTION

According to Carissa Cunningham, spokeswoman for the AIDS Action Council in Washington, the Bush administration has partially responded to only two of the 30 recommendations -- the call to speed up the therapeutic drug approval process and a recommendation to include more minorities and women in drug testing.

"We certainly share Magic Johnson's frustration," she said. "We've been working for years trying to get a response from this administration."

Among the recommendations in the year-old report:

-- Develop a national plan for the prevention and treatment of AIDS.

-- Fully finance the Ryan White CARE Act, which authorizes a form of natural disaster aid to cities such as San Francisco that have been hit hard by the disease.

-- Increase AIDS services in poor or rural neighborhoods.

-- Legalize the purchase and possession of hypodermic needles. Copyright 1992 The San Francisco Chronicle;

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