White House Plans Panel on AIDS Issues

The White House plans to form a blue-ribbon commission to study the issues surrounding the AIDS epidemic, ranging from economic cost to national defense, Reagan Administration officials said Tuesday.

The Administration may begin organizing the panel in two weeks, the officials said, if President Reagan approves a plan that is being promoted by his advisers.

The Public Health Service last June urged establishment of an AIDS commission to study the anticipated burden on the health-care system, and the idea has caught on in Congress, where at least two bills have been proposed.

‘Do It on Our Own’

“If Congress is going to force us to set up a commission, we’d rather do it on our own,” said one Administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The panel would make recommendations on policy changes and funding to cope with the epidemic.

The decision comes as AIDS promises to become an increasingly important issue politically, both in the coming presidential campaign and as a focus during the President’s final months in office.

Advisers have been briefing the President on AIDS for weeks during Monday lunches, and Reagan, after receiving criticism for his long silence on the issue, eased into the AIDS debate this month with a Philadelphia speech that endorsed AIDS sex education as long as it remained under local control and emphasized sexual abstinence and fidelity.

Conservative supporters have strongly influenced White House acceptance of the commission idea, according to Administration officials.

Specifically mentioning California Sen. Pete Wilson, a Republican, one official observed: “The fact that guys like Wilson are behind this certainly caused folks over here to pay more attention.”

At the same time, in the House, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Highland) is sponsoring a bill to establish a 21-member commission that would include members from the Cabinet, federal, state and local agencies and the public.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, said Lewis’ bill has “strong bipartisan support,” adding that he expects to back it. “A commission can be useful,” Waxman said, “if it has input from a number of institutions and groups involved” in combatting the AIDS epidemic.

A similar measure has been introduced in the Senate. It is not clear what will happen to the congressional bills once a White House commission is established. One congressional aide said they might be abandoned, but “it depends on what direction the President goes. He has to be realistic” and recognize the urgency of the problem.

“We would like to appoint a relatively small group of distinguished Americans who don’t have an ax to grind,” said an Administration official. The number of members and their areas of interest “are all up in the air,” he said.

Officials of some interest groups do not believe a White House commission will be effective.

Jeff Levi, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said any commission appointed by the Reagan Administration would be “a rubber stamp for what’s going on now--an inadequate commitment to resources and programs that are needed.”

The Administration official said the commission will study medical research and the “long-term implications of everything from the budget to national security,” noting, for example, that the fatal disease has the potential of shrinking the pool of young men available for military service.

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, destroys the body’s immune system, making those afflicted particularly vulnerable to infections. The virus that causes AIDS also can invade the central nervous system and cause neurological disorders like dementia.

In a report last June, the Public Health Service predicted that there would be 270,000 AIDS cases by 1991, with 175,000 deaths. It also estimated that for that year alone the direct health-care costs for people with AIDS will reach at least $8 billion.

At the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, Robert Kupperman, senior adviser on terrorism and defense, said the expenditures could “swamp” the life and health insurance industries and force a diversion of needed funds from national defense projects.

ACLU files suit over ouster of man with AIDS virus from drug program. Part II, Page 1.