Subject: Reagan Puts Homosexual on AIDS Panel Against Counsel
Date: Published: 7/24/87 90 lines
Source:  WALL STREET JOURNAL. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   Reagan Puts Homosexual on AIDS Panel
   Against Counsel of Conservative Advisers
    ---
   By Ellen Hume and Jeanne Saddler
   Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

    ROCKVILLE, Md. -- President Reagan, overruling his own
conservative advisers, appointed a doctor who is an avowed
homosexual to his new presidential commission on AIDS. 
   The commission, which met for the first time here
yesterday, has no prominent AIDS specialists but does include
New York Archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor, several health
professionals and conservative activists.
   In a written statement, newly appointed panelist Dr. Frank
Lilly said he hopes to "forcefully represent the gay
 community as well as the biomedical community as a member of
this commission."  Dr. Lilly is chairman of the genetics
department of Albert Einstein Medical Center in New York.
   Separately, the Labor Department said it will require that
health-care employers adopt procedures protecting workers
from contracting the AIDS virus, or face fines of up to
$10,000.
   The 13-member presidential commission was introduced by
President Reagan yesterday after he toured a pediatric AIDS
ward at the National Institutes of Health here.  "I will not
 stop, will not rest until we send AIDS the way of smallpox
and polio," Mr. Reagan said, after picking up one
14-month-old baby born with the fatal acquired immune
deficiency syndrome.
   The president referred to "the death of friends and former
associates" from the sexually transmitted disease, which has
hit hardest among homosexuals and intravenous drug users but
is now spreading to the broader population, including
 children born to AIDS victims.
The Labor Department's move will force private hospitals
and other concerns to adopt special precautions, such as
protective gloves and gowns and the careful handling of
needles and scalpel blades.  The department's Occupational
Safety and Health Administration will begin inspecting
hospitals and other facilities within three to four months,
officials said.
   Health professionals on the president's commission include
its chairman, Eugene Mayberry, who is chief executive officer
of the Mayo Clinic; Colleen Conway-Welch, dean of nursing at
Vanderbilt University; Theresa Crenshaw, director of a
California sex dysfunction clinic; and Burton J. Lee III, a
cancer specialist from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer
Center.
   Also serving on the panel is Indiana State Health
Commissioner Woodrow A. Myers Jr., who won plaudits for
calming public fears when AIDS victim Ryan White attended an
Indiana public elementary school.  Others include Project HOPE
founder William B. Walsh, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. 
Chief Executive John J. Creedon, and retired Chief of Naval
Operations James D. Watkins.
   The president's new commission includes several outspoken
conservatives:  Saturday Evening Post publisher Cory SerVaas,
who also is a medical doctor; Amway Corp. founder Richard De
 Vos, an active Republican Party fund-raiser; and Illinois
State Rep. Penny Pullen, an associate of anti-feminist leader
Phyllis Schlafly, who has introduced in the Illinois
legislature a controversial bill mandating the tracing of
AIDS patients' sexual contacts for the past seven years.
   Criticism of the commission appointments yesterday came
 from public health officials disappointed that AIDS
specialists weren't included and from conservatives upset
about the last-minute addition of a homosexual panelist.
 President Reagan said the selection of the commissioners
relied heavily on advice from Mrs. Reagan's brother, a
Philadelphia physician.
   Saying he was "upset and disappointed" at the Lilly
appointment, Sen. Gordon Humphrey issued a statement saying
it would send a message to impressionable youths that
homosexuality is acceptable.  "The practice of homosexuality
is immoral.  The consequence of that immoral behavior is
 AIDS," the conservative New Hampshire Republican said.
    White House domestic policy adviser Gary Bauer and others
had actively opposed appointing a known homosexual to the
panel but were overruled by the president, White House
officials said.

[This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the 
personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the 
hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.]