Washington Blade - April 5, 2002
Mike Fleming

The two appointments -- along with whoever receives the nod to head the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control & Prevention -- came something as a relief to gay activists who have worried that conservatives in the Bush administration might limit funding for AIDS and other health issues of concern to gays.

"We are cautiously optimistic about these latest appointments because neither has an overtly anti-gay record on LGBT health like some of Bush's previous appointments," said Maureen O'Leary, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association.

Bush nominated Elias Zerhouni, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, for the post at NIH, which includes the Office of AIDS Research, which manages the scientific, budgetary, legislative and policy elements of the agency's AIDS research program.

Police trauma surgeon Richard Carmona was tapped for surgeon general, the nation's top spokesperson on public health. Carmona's views on sex education and AIDS prevention aren't widely known, but he has been "open and helpful" to other minority groups, O'Leary said.

Left open is CDC director; Jeffrey Koplan left last week to take over academic health affairs at Emory University in Atlanta.

Zerhouni and Carmona face hearings in the Democrat-controlled Senate and a committee headed by gay-friendly Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) No date has been set for the hearings.

GLMA is taking a wait-and-see approach on the nominations as they move through the Senate hearings before getting more involved, O'Leary said.

"Given the anti-gay appointments to the AIDS panel, and the whole administration stance on abstinence-only prevention, we have to keep our eye on what's happening," O'Leary said.

Bush was criticized earlier this year for his choice of conservative Republican Tom Coburn, a former congressman from Oklahoma, to head the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Coburn, a medical doctor, has said sexual abstinence, rather than condom use, should be the main component of the nation's AIDS prevention programs.

David Satcher, appointed as surgeon general by former President Bill Clinton, came under fire from conservatives last year when he issued a report on sexual health and behavior. The document called for the "recognition and tolerance of the diversity of sexual values within any community" -- including gay-specific education for sexually active high school students -- and questioned abstinence-only prevention.

The report also found there was no evidence that a gay person could become heterosexual, dismissing the claims of the ex-gay movement.

Satcher left the post in February at the end of his four-year term.

In selecting Zerhouni and Carmona last week, the White House said the two men share views to similar to Bush. "I don't think you'd expect the president to appoint people who hold wildly different views than he does," said Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary, at the time of the nominations. Fauci passed over

In selecting Zerhouni for the NIH post, Bush passed over noted AIDS researcher Anthony Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergies & Infectious Diseases. Thompson publicly pushed for Fauci to head the agency, which has been without a director for two years.

Bush said Zerhouni will be a "perfect fit" as the NIH chief, in part because the two men see "eye to eye" on a conservative approach to stem cell research.

Fauci said those conservative leanings could have implications for AIDS research. Fauci has come out against abstinence-only AIDS education as "wholly unscientific and unfounded," an approach he said was partly responsible for the nomination going to Zerhouni, Fauci told "Good Morning America" on March 29.

"Any president is likely to choose people who think the way he does on key issues," Fauci said on the ABC program. "That's his prerogative, and I think it makes sense that he would do what he thinks is right."

Fauci has stressed the importance of research -- and the ever-increasing funding it requires -- in the fight against AIDS, and has urged presidents since taking the post in 1984 to support increased funds for AIDS, a suggestion of which Clinton "was extremely supportive", and which Bush is "less so," he said.

Fauci has credited aggressive funding and research under Clinton with the advancement of AIDS treatments and improved survival rates from the disease.

Bush has requested a $4 billion increase for the NIH, including a $1 billion increase for Fauci's infectious disease department, but that was for other disease research like small pox and does not translate into any increases for AIDS programs.

Fauci, Carmona and Zerhouni did not respond to interview requests.

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