U.S. HEALTH SECRETARY DRAWS JEERS

AIDS Activists Disrupted A Visit By Donna Shalala, Demanding Federal
Funding For Needle Exchanges.

BRYN MAWR -- Dozens of protesters last night greeted U.S. Health andHuman
Services Secretary Donna Shalala with signs bearing the names of those who
died after contracting the AIDS virus via dirty needles.

The protesters, about 150 strong inside Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, then
chanted, their voices rumbling through the sanctuary: "Clinton, Shalala
killed my brothers." "Clinton, Shalala killed my sisters."

The AIDS activists, many who journeyed to the Bryn Mawr church from
Philadelphia, were there to demand that Shalala lift the ban on federal
funding on needle-exchange programs -- programs that, just a week earlier,
she had said reduced the spread of AIDS and did not increase the use
ofillegal drugs.

And they were there to challenge her to resign if she would not stand up
for a disease-prevention technique that she herself said was successful.

"You're refusing to support something that you know works," Joyce Hamilton
shouted at Shalala above the chants. "When you get back to Washington . . .
you tell them to find some money for us."

As the protesters chanted, a few shouting for her to stand up or step down,
Shalala, who had traveled from Washington to give a speech titled "Raising
the Children of the Next Millennium," sat in a towering wood-backed chair,
her chin in her hand, and waited patiently for the voices to quiet.

Fifteen minutes after they began, the activists marched outside for
another, louder, 20-minute protest, allowing Shalala to begin her speech
about the children of the future.

Last week, Shalala enraged AIDS activists when she said the scientific
community supported needle-exchange programs but added that the Clinton
administration would not lift the ban on federal funding to pay for such a
program.

"I have a deep respect for those who disagree with the administration's
decision," Shalala said in a news conference before her speech. "Yes, the
science is there. But we made a decision not to fund the program."

She strongly encouraged local governments and agencies to develop their own
exchange programs.

Activists, however, believe she is avoiding her responsibilities as the
nation's top public health official.

"They're letting politics get in the way of science," activist Paul Davis
said in an earlier interview.