Advisory Group Urges Summit on AIDS

Warning that there is no luxury of time, President Clinton’s new AIDS advisory council urged him Friday to show more leadership in combatting the disease and to convene a presidential summit on the subject.

“He must make the battle against AIDS one of the most visible and continuing priorities of his presidency,” the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV-AIDS said in a statement. “The cost to our country, in life, in lost productivity, in financial terms, in anguish and in grief, is incalculably large.”

Scott Hitt, a Los Angeles doctor who heads the panel, said the council was pleased with Clinton’s efforts to fight AIDS but was “asking him to show an awful lot more leadership on this issue.”

Clinton attended Friday’s first meeting of the council and told members that even in a time of budget cuts, “this is not the time to slow down or retreat” in fighting the disease.

He pointed to Thursday’s Senate approval of legislation to continue the Ryan White Act supporting AIDS-care funding as evidence that Americans “can attack this disease without attacking each other.”

The bill to extend the program for five years was approved on a 97-3 vote, but only after two days of assaults from Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) against funding for AIDS research and treatment. Helms blamed gay men for perpetuating the AIDS epidemic through what he called “incredibly offensive and revolting conduct.”

Clinton made no reference to Helms, but said Americans should find “common ground” in fighting the disease.

“When we begin to pit one disease against another or one group of people against another in this country, we all end up behind,” Clinton said.

Clinton said recent medical advances in combatting AIDS “should redouble our determination even in this season of balanced budgeting to reinvest more and more of our nation’s wealth into medical research, in AIDS and medical research of all kinds.”

Clinton has tried to maintain good relations with the gay and lesbian community. But last month’s announcement of the new AIDS advisory panel was marred when Secret Service officers donned rubber gloves before admitting a delegation of gay and lesbian elected officials to the White House.

Clinton later sent the officials a letter of apology.

Hitt said the council was recommending Clinton convene an AIDS summit this year and follow it up with a speech making it a national priority to fight the disease.