Some AIDS Panelists Oppose Health Emergency Plan

Members of the presidential AIDS commission Tuesday tentatively endorsed the major draft recommendations released last week by their chairman, Adm. James D. Watkins, particularly the proposal to expand anti-discrimination legislation to protect AIDS patients and those infected with the virus.

But several commissioners said that they would oppose his proposal to establish a new health emergency response plan that would make the surgeon general what critics have called a health “czar.”

Watkins, who wrote the controversial recommendation without consulting his fellow commissioners, acknowledged that he “took the liberty of drafting my own thoughts” instead of following usual commission procedures, but he insisted that some kind of health emergency plan be devised by the panel.

‘A Better Way?’

“There was no intent to ram this down anybody’s throats,” Watkins said. But such a recommendation, he added, “has to be in there for the President,” and “we’re in the best position to say: ‘Is there a better way?’ ”

The plan, which is described in the report’s 12th and final chapter, charges that the federal government is “ill-prepared to respond effectively to . . . public health emergencies or epidemics.” It recommends legislation to expand the Public Health Services Act to increase the authority of the surgeon general as the government’s official spokesman and policy leader “when the President determines and declares public health emergencies in the nation.”

Commissioners met Tuesday to discuss the report for the first time since its release last week and are not scheduled to vote on its contents until they meet again for their final sessions on June 16 and 17. The report is to be presented to the White House by June 24.

Watkins described the first 11 chapters--which lay out a blueprint for combatting the AIDS epidemic--as a strategy for the nation, and the 12th chapter as a “management tool” for the future. “It says (that), if you buy the strategy, then this is the way it should be carried out,” Watkins said.

However, Commissioner William Walsh, supported by several other commissioners, urged that the entire 12th chapter be scrapped. “The current system is adequate,” he said. “It just hasn’t been used properly. It’s already in place. We don’t need anything that dramatic, or melodramatic. It’s not broke, so there’s no need to fix it.”

Loss of Safeguards Cited

Commissioner Penny Pullen, a conservative Illinois state legislator, agreed, saying that the chairman’s proposal “indirectly calls for a disruption of standard government safeguards, such as accountability,” and “to give that kind of power” to one office “isn’t going to work.”

Kristine Gebbie, chief health officer for the state of Oregon, who is considered one of the panel’s more liberal members, said that she has not made up her mind on the Watkins plan. “I don’t know whether we need a whole new system or some new triggers in the present system,” she said.

Several of the 13 commissioners said they would favor such a plan, but opinion was divided over who should have the emergency powers--the surgeon general or some other official appointed by the secretary of health and human services.

There was little disagreement over the report’s major recommendation: federal action to expand anti-discrimination legislation to protect AIDS patients and those infected with the virus and to extend such regulation to the private sector.

Anti-Bias Law Opposed

The Reagan Administration, which has withheld comment on the commission’s preliminary report, opposes the enactment of a federal anti-discrimination statute to protect AIDS patients and those who are infected, saying that such legislation is the province of the states.

AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is caused by a virus that destroys the body’s immune system, leaving it powerless against certain cancers and otherwise rare infections. It can also invade the central nervous system, causing severe neurological disorders.

In this country, AIDS primarily has afflicted homosexual and bisexual men, intravenous drug users and their sexual partners. As of Monday, a total of 64,506 Americans had contracted AIDS, of whom 36,255 had died.