POLITICS ’88 : Bush Breaks With Reagan on AIDS Report : Says Laws Are Needed to Protect Victims

Vice President George Bush, breaking with Reagan Administration policy, said Tuesday that federal laws or a presidential order are needed to prohibit discrimination against people with AIDS or those carrying the virus.

One day after President Reagan received the report of his AIDS commission without commenting on its anti-discrimination proposals, Bush praised the document and said the protection of those with the disease is a “national, federal responsibility.” But he also said the approximately $1 billion the government is spending to combat the fatal illness was the proper amount and that additional federal funding was unnecessary.

The vice president’s comments, made to reporters aboard Air Force Two as he flew here, offered a quick response to the report prepared by the special presidential commission on AIDS. Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, the certain Democratic presidential nominee, also endorsed the study.

By contrast, the White House treated the document, presented to Reagan on Monday by the commission’s chairman, retired Adm. James D. Watkins, in a low-key manner--giving no clear response to its recommendations, and in particular to its centerpiece, a call for anti-discrimination protection for the burgeoning number of people with AIDS or AIDS infections.

Indeed, the Administration has indicated in the past that it prefers to leave such actions to the states, and key officials have said they oppose new anti-discrimination laws.

No Comment From Reagan

In accepting the report, Reagan said his drug policy adviser, Dr. Donald Ian MacDonald, would prepare within 30 days “a course of action that takes us forward.” The President made no comments on specific proposals, and met with Watkins without fanfare.

Bush’s remarks, and a separate written statement praising the report as “a landmark analysis” that “will be the benchmark for future discussions,” coincided with the start of a 23-hour, overnight visit to Northern California. AIDS has become a particularly sensitive political issue here as a result of its impact on the gay population and that community’s political clout in this area.

The vice president flew to California, considered a crucial state in the presidential campaign, to tour the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, attend a fund-raising lunch and dinner for his Republican presidential race and deliver a foreign policy address this morning in San Francisco.

His comments were hailed by Thomas Brandt, the AIDS commission’s spokesman, who said Watkins was “delighted” that the vice president had “endorsed the key elements. . . .”

Gay Task Force Response

Jeff Levi, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said: “We are grateful for the recognition of the link between civil liberties and public health,” and called for Bush to “use his influence to move the Reagan Administration to pass such legislation as quickly as possible.”

Bush, who attended Watkins’ briefing Monday in the Oval Office, was asked during the flight whether he supported legislation to protect the rights of those carrying the AIDS virus.

“I think it is needed,” he replied, adding that he also would support a presidential order banning such discrimination in the federal government.

In March, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued voluntary guidelines recommending that AIDS-infected federal employees be permitted to work as long as they are able, and allowing managers to take disciplinary action against employees who refuse to work with infected colleagues.

Referring to Watkins’ presentation, Bush said: “I was very much persuaded by what he said, when he talked about the need for people in the work place to be able to come forward” and be tested for the disease without fearing retribution.

“They’re not going to come forward if they think they’re going to be thrown out of their jobs,” the vice president said.

Bush, who said he has read only the report’s recommendations and not the entire text, also focused on the impact of the disease on children, who contract it through blood transfusions or in the womb.

“There is a danger of discrimination against little kids,” he said.

“I think it is important to do a lot to lay to rest some of the fears. There is a lot of misunderstanding,” he said, singling out the cases of “little kids (who) can’t go to a school and the only reason they can’t go there is people think they communicate the disease and the facts show that doesn’t happen.”

Asked whether support for anti-discrimination legislation might become a gay rights issue, he replied: “It should not be. This is a national health problem. We’re talking about children, innocent victims.”

“I’d hate it if a kid of mine got a blood transfusion (or) my grandson had AIDS, and the community discriminated against that child, that innocent child, particularly when the report concludes . . . that AIDS is not, cannot be transmitted in the ways that some have feared,” he said. “So it is a human dimension, innocent children, that concerns me about this.”

Advice From ‘My Conscience’

Bush, who said he has discussed the issue with Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, was asked who his advisers were on the question of AIDS. Pointing to his chest with his right hand, he said: “My conscience has been advising me.”

The report, reflecting nearly a year’s work by the 13-member commission, stressed in its key recommendation that discrimination is the greatest obstacle to controlling AIDS. It said that existing laws that prohibit discrimination against the handicapped--which the courts have extended to include individuals suffering from infectious diseases--should be expanded to cover the private sector. Current law provides such protection only to institutions or contractors receiving federal funds.

Staff writer Marlene Cimons in Washington contributed to this story.