White House Panel Assails AIDS Bias : Commission Chief Goes Against Stand of Administration

The chairman of the White House AIDS commission today called for strong federal anti-discrimination protection for people infected with the AIDS virus, a recommendation that runs counter to the Administration position.

Retired Navy Adm. James D. Watkins, releasing a 269-page draft of a final report to be delivered to President Reagan by June 24, acknowledged that some of his 579 recommendations might not meet with approval at the White House.

‘Ask the White House’

“You’ll just have to ask the White House,” he said when asked how he thought his recommendations would be received. But later he said he views the recommendations as centrist and said of White House officials: “I think they are going to like it. I’m optimistic.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen has testified that the Administration believes that anti-discrimination legislation for AIDS victims should be enacted at the state and local, not federal, levels.

Although technically the recommendations are those of Watkins only, the commission chairman said the proposals represent “my estimate of consensus within the commission.” He said he thinks that they will be adopted with no substantial changes.

The panel meets next Tuesday to consider Watkins’ recommendations and again June 16-17 to take final action.

“HIV-related discrimination is impairing this nation’s ability to limit the spread of the epidemic,” Watkins’ report said.

Discrimination ‘Rampant’

He said that discrimination against people with the AIDS virus is rampant and that the problem is both “actual discrimination and fear of discrimination.”

Eliminating discrimination, he said, “is the key to fighting the epidemic.”

Watkins told reporters that his final recommendations, including an earlier one to spend an additional $1.5 billion a year for drug treatment programs, would cost about $3 billion a year over and above current spending on AIDS, as has been reported previously.

That would break down to about two-thirds federal money and one-third state and local money and include roughly $500 million in additional funds for AIDS education programs.

Watkins recommended establishment of effective state partner-notification programs targeted at those who would not know they were at risk for infection from having sex with someone known by health authorities to be infected with the virus.

His report came one day after the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine also called for federal anti-discrimination legislation.