Bush’s Doctor Assails Dannemeyer’s AIDS Stance : Health: GOP congressman is criticized for his ‘prejudicial attitude’ toward the disease and federally funded research.

President Bush’s personal physician has criticized Republican Rep. William E. Dannemeyer for a “very subjective and prejudicial attitude” toward AIDS and federally funded research to slow the spread of the disease.

Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) has long been criticized by homosexual groups and AIDS activists for his anti-gay vehemence. But the latest comments came from the White House physician, Dr. Burton Lee, who named Dannemeyer and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) as impeding efforts to stem the disease.

Dannemeyer, who is running against U.S. Sen. John Seymour in the California Senate primary, said he was surprised at Lee’s remarks, which appeared in the New York Post. Dannemeyer said his position on acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is similar to the views expressed by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan.

Dannemeyer, in a telephone interview, 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.

Dannemeyer and Helms have been trying 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.

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

“It’s a free country. . . . He’s free to speak his mind,” Fitzwater said. But “he’s speaking for himself and not for the White House, so we wouldn’t make it official for him.”

Lee said in the interview published Monday that Dannemeyer “takes a very subjective and prejudicial attitude” toward AIDS research funding.

Lee accused Dannemeyer and Helms of using their congressional clout to block federally funded education programs designed to promote safe-sex practices and research into sexual behavior that may contribute to AIDS transmission.

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

Lee said the NIH leads the world in AIDS research and has discovered the chief treatments of the disease. Congress “should leave it alone,” he said.

“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,” Lee said.

A strident critic of the homosexual rights movement, Dannemeyer said he would support government-funded research designed to calculate the rate of homosexuality in the United States. He argues that estimates of 10% are too high.