Bush Settles on Chief of National AIDS Policy Office

President Bush on Wednesday named his acting AIDS advisor, Carol J. Thompson, as head of the Office of National AIDS Policy.

Bush’s first two AIDS advisors, Scott Evertz and Joseph O’Neill, are both male doctors who are openly gay. Thompson, a woman, is not a physician and is heterosexual.

The appointments of Evertz and O’Neill to the job were applauded at the time by gay groups and AIDS activists. Evertz was the first openly gay person nominated to an executive branch office by a Republican president, but his association with gay groups and his support of condom use rankled some conservatives.

Thompson has held the post on an interim basis since August. Before that, she was a White House domestic policy advisor and worked at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

She replaced O’Neill, whom Bush had named deputy coordinator of a new office that directs response to the global AIDS pandemic.

Colleagues said Thompson was passionate about the AIDS issue and helped implement Bush’s five-year, $15-billion plan aimed at stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS worldwide.

“Carol is a great choice for AIDS director,” said Jay Lefkowitz, who worked with Thompson on the issue when both were in the White House domestic policy shop.

But the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, said her appointment was meaningless because the Bush administration had not spent enough money fighting AIDS at home or abroad.

“The White House has made this position so irrelevant, we’re not overly concerned about Carol Thompson,” said Cheryl Jacques, the group’s president.

“A whole generation doesn’t know anything about this disease and is being told nothing by their government about prevention,” Jacques said. “They need the unvarnished truth.”