Bush’s Doctor Criticizes Dannemeyer on AIDS : Health: The congressman has used his clout to block federal research, Dr. Burton Lee says.

Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) has come under fire once again for his conservative views on AIDS and his efforts to block funding for AIDS-related research, but this time the criticism has come from an unusual source: President Bush’s personal physician.

Dr. Burton Lee, the White House physician, said in an interview published Monday in the New York Post that Dannemeyer “takes a very subjective and prejudicial attitude” toward AIDS and federally funded research designed to help slow the spread of the disease.

Lee specifically criticized Dannemeyer and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) for using their congressional clout to block federally funded educational programs designed to promote safe-sex practices and research into sexual behavior that may contribute to the transmission of AIDS.

Dannemeyer, who is running against Sen. John Seymour in this year’s GOP Senate primary, expressed surprise at Lee’s remarks. He said his position on AIDS is similar to the views expressed by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan on behalf of the Bush Administration.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater, asked about Lee’s criticism of Dannemeyer and Helms, declined to enter the fray. “We wouldn’t comment on specific members of Congress,” Fitzwater said. “We do share the doctor’s concerns about AIDS research and an aggressive AIDS medical program to fight that disease.”

Lee’s criticism of Dannemeyer and Helms involves their efforts to block congressional funding for AIDS-related research by the National Institutes of Health. Last year, Sullivan canceled a planned $18-million NIH survey of teen-age sexual practices after the two lawmakers announced their intention to fight it in Congress.

Contacted Monday by The Times, Lee said he had not intended to single out Dannemeyer and Helms for criticism in his interview with the Post, but stood by his criticism of congressional interference in AIDS-related research.

Lee said NIH is the world’s leading institution involved in AIDS research and discovered the leading treatments of the disease. Congress “should leave it alone,” he said.

“The NIH should be treated as a university,” Lee said, noting that post-graduate research and teaching dominate its activities. “Give it a budget, let its director be personally responsible to Congress, and if you don’t like its performance, fire the director at the end of the fiscal year.”

Dannemeyer, reached by phone in Orange County, said he thought that Lee was being “used” by bureaucrats within the Department of Health and Human Services who want to use taxpayer dollars to investigate the private sexual practices of Americans.

A strident critic of the homosexual rights movement, Dannemeyer said he would support government-funded research designed to calculate the prevalence of homosexuality in America, arguing that current estimates of 10% are far too high.

Asked about Lee’s remarks at a press briefing, Fitzwater emphasized that the doctor’s comments were not to be taken as representative of White House policy. He noted that Lee had been a member of the presidential commission on AIDS, and has his own views on the subject.

“It’s a free country, and Dr. Lee feels very strongly about it and he thinks that those are points of view that he wanted to raise, and he’s free to speak his mind,” Fitzwater said. But, he added, “he’s speaking for himself and not for the White House, so we wouldn’t make it official for him.”