Gay Activists Fight Placing Therapist on AIDS Panel

In a move that angered homosexual activists, county supervisors agreed Tuesday to increase the size of the San Diego County AIDS task force, potentially clearing the way for the appointment of a sex therapist who local gay leaders contend favors an alarmist approach to treating and testing for the deadly disease.

The board voted, 4-1, with Supervisor Leon Williams dissenting, to expand by one the 24-member regional group, which was established last year to coordinate and promote AIDS prevention, education and treatment throughout San Diego County.

Williams said he wanted to delay the decision until members of the task force had time to evaluate nominees for the new spot. Supervisor Susan Golding and other members of the board, however, stressed that the action Tuesday merely involved expanding the volunteer group, not approving the appointment of any specific person.

“The question of who is nominated should be left for another day,” Golding said. “All we’re doing is creating a slot.”

Nonetheless, some local gay leaders stressed that the task force opening seemed to have been created specifically for Dr. Theresa Crenshaw, noting that the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting refers to a March 24 decision by the board to “recommend the appointment” of the San Diego-based sex therapist.

Outspoken Stance

Crenshaw, who is traveling in Europe and could not be reached for comment, has earned the ire of homosexual activists for her outspoken stand on AIDS, which she predicts could ultimately kill 25% or more of the world’s population unless there are drastic behavior changes or a medical breakthrough.

In recent months, Crenshaw has undertaken a well-orchestrated campaign to spread her dire predictions of the scope of the AIDS epidemic, forming a women’s group to promote testing and prevention as well as appearing on numerous radio and television talk shows.

During public appearances, Crenshaw has pushed for widespread testing to determine carriers of the virus and for the relaxation of laws preventing health officials from notifying the sexual partners of people who are diagnosed with AIDS.

Rick Moore, a local gay activist, said Crenshaw’s approach to the problems goes even further: While appearing on a San Diego-area radio talk show, the sex therapist essentially endorsed the use of quarantines to prevent the spread of AIDS, a tactic that has been vehemently opposed by many members of the gay community.

Moore called Crenshaw a “self-serving publicity seeker” and warned the supervisors that the doctor was seeking appointment to the task force “in an attempt to gain credibility so she can further herself through the media.”

Credentials Questioned

He said Crenshaw is a qualified sex therapist, but lacks adequate credentials to serve on the AIDS task force. In particular, he noted that Crenshaw, who is president of the American Assn. of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, has not treated a single AIDS patient.

After the board’s vote Tuesday, Moore said he felt the San Diego gay and lesbian community would mobilize to oppose the appointment of Crenshaw.

Nicole Ramirez-Murray, a member of the AIDS task force, said Tuesday that he felt the supervisors had “already been educated” as to Crenshaw’s background and predicted that the sex therapist ultimately will not be appointed.

“Her appointment would make no sense,” he said. “The task force is all very positive. But she has really far-out, negative outlooks on this whole AIDS thing.”

Susan Jester, president of the San Diego County Log Cabin Club, a Republican organization, said that the appointment of Crenshaw would “be unfortunate.”

“There’s a number of people who are exceedingly more qualified,” Jester said. “The supervisors need to appoint someone based on their qualifications, not how much media attention they get.”

Moore agreed, saying in an interview that “the combination of (Crenshaw’s) conservative goals and fixity for publicity would completely change the character of the task force. A quiet, useful organization would be dragged into a maelstrom of publicity where I’m afraid much of its efforts would be spent on dealing with the media and controversy and problems that don’t have anything to do with AIDS.”

Dramatic Forecast

Crenshaw has been anything but quiet in her quest to expose the immense danger AIDS poses and the steps she feels should be taken to begin to curb the threat.

Her dramatic forecast of the potential spread of AIDS is based on a World Health Organization report that 50 million to 100 million people will become infected with the disease by 1991, a figure Crenshaw believes could rise to 1 billion or more by 1996.

The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that only 20% to 30% of those infected with the AIDS virus will develop the invariably fatal disease, which destroys its victims’ immune system, leaving them susceptible to attack by various types of diseases.

Crenshaw and some other public health officials, however, believe that virtually everyone infected by the virus could develop fatal AIDS-related diseases over a longer period of time. She cites a recent study in the British medical journal Lancet that found that only 40% of those infected by the virus were symptom-free three years later.

In addition, she puts little faith in the use of condoms as a preventative measure, pointing to a study of a dozen AIDS patients and their partners that indicates that the virus spread in two cases despite the use of condoms. Federal health officials, however, maintain that condoms can serve as the most effective way to prevent the spread of AIDS short of abstinence.