Magic, on Panel, Says AIDS Fight Belongs to All

The message from Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the newest member of the National Commission on AIDS, was simple but eloquent: The battle against AIDS belongs to everyone.

“We’re all in this. It’s not just Magic Johnson. It’s everybody. Until everybody recognizes that, we’re not going to win this battle. I’m not the only soldier here. . . . Magic Johnson cannot do this alone.”

The former Los Angeles Lakers guard, who retired from professional basketball last fall after his disclosure that he was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, was attending his first meeting Tuesday as a member of the federal panel.

Johnson, 32, was similarly direct in delivering an unsparing message to President Bush, who appointed him to the commission. He told Bush in a hand-delivered letter: “No matter how good the team may be, it won’t win the championship without the owner fully in the game. I don’t feel you’ve been there up until now.”

The commission advises Congress and the White House on a national strategy to combat the epidemic. Johnson replaced Belinda Mason, a journalist who died of AIDS last fall.

One of his first duties was to listen to a parade of witnesses who described for the panel--sometimes in moving, impassioned speeches--how the epidemic has touched their lives.

Later, he urged Bush to step up the national fight against the epidemic, saying that too little had been done.

In the letter, which he handed to Bush in the Oval Office and whose contents were made available to The Times, Johnson urged federal spending increases in the next two years, including: $900 million more for National Institutes of Health research, $900 million to fully fund treatment programs under congressional legislation named for Ryan White, the youth who died of AIDS, and $500 million for Medicaid payments for care of those infected with the HIV virus.

“This early intervention would save millions of lives and billions of dollars,” Johnson said of the proposal to allow Medicaid to pay for the medical treatment for HIV-infected persons in addition to those with fully developed AIDS.

Current total spending on AIDS for research, education and prevention totals just over $1 billion.

During Tuesday’s hearing, the former Laker listened attentively to a steady stream of witnesses, sometimes asking questions, other times offering what hope he could.

“Mr. Johnson, you must forgive me, because I don’t know any basketball stars,” said Derek Hodel, executive director of the People With AIDS Health Group. “I do, however, know hundreds of people with HIV, and among them are countless young black men. . . . To the best of my knowledge, the President has never called them.

“I watched as you became an AIDS hero, and were added to a very short list . . . the so-called innocent victims of AIDS,” he added. “It does not include most of the people I know.

“I ask with utmost humility that you take great care in your new role . . . we ask you to embrace us all. . . . Already you have given people with HIV great hope, by your will to live, by your will to beat this thing. Your taking control of your illness and your positive attitude show great courage. Sadly, they will not be enough to keep you alive.”

Hodel urged Johnson to “educate President Bush . . . to push him to do more. . . . My bet is the President takes your call. God knows, he won’t take mine. . . .

“Send the message, Magic: We are the thousand points of light and we are being extinguished, one by one.”

Johnson responded with his own plea: for patience, for more time to become educated on how to fight the fight.

“I’m in it for the people,” he said. “I’m in it for everyone . . . I want to sit here and do more.

“When I’m ready, I will take my fight to whomever--the President on down. But I can’t go into battle and not know who I’m fighting--who the enemy is. . . . It’s not so much learning about AIDS--it’s about the fight. . . .

“This is a good commission. These are good people. They want to help. The door’s been shut. We’ve just got to kick it down.”

During a brief photo session, Bush said that Johnson could “make an enormous contribution--he already has. When you read the interviews and the reaction that he is having on the young people of this country for this very honest, compassionate and sensitive view he has taken, it makes an impression on you, and he’ll make a contribution on the commission.”

Bush said that he believes Johnson is having an impact both on behavior changes and on the level of compassion for the AIDS-afflicted.

Johnson declined to discuss his own health, saying only that it was “good” and that he has been running four miles a day. He chose to focus instead on his newest responsibility.

“It’s a role I feel I can live up to,” he said, flashing his smile. “It’s another challenge in my life, a different challenge. Before, I was on a different agenda. Now I’m on God’s agenda. Now I want to help people who have it and people who don’t--and on and on and on.”

Times staff writer Douglas Jehl contributed to this story.

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