PAGE ONE (WASHINGTON) Clinton Names Atlanta Activist As AIDS Czar
He promises support needed for her success

Louis Freedberg, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington

Promising an ``open door'' to the Oval Office, President Clinton appointed
Atlanta activist Sandy Thurman yesterday as his director of national AIDS
policy.

Clinton had been under pressure from AIDS groups to hire a highprofile
politician, like former Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker, who could
command attention on Capitol Hill and in the media. Instead, the president
selected someone relatively well known within the AIDS advocacy community
but not outside it.

Thurman's appointment was welcomed by most AIDS organizations. She is a
former director of AID Atlanta, the largest organization in the South
providing health services and support services to people with AIDS. She
most recently worked at Atlanta's Carter Center, heading a task force on
child survival and development. ``My door is open to her,'' Clinton said.

``I've worked with her, and I can attest that she tells it like it is, she
speaks the truth unvarnished, she won't hold back in this office,'' he said
of the 43yearold Thurman, who also served as political director for his
reelection campaign in Georgia. ``She will have the support and the
resources she will need, including my personal support, to succeed in this
important task.''

Thurman, an Atlanta native, replaces Patsy Fleming, who resigned late last
year. Clinton's first AIDS adviser, Kristine Gebbie, was criticized for
being ineffective, and she resigned in July 1994.

``We are deeply aware of the responsibility that this administration has to
all Americans who are living with HIV and AIDS and to those all around the
world who turn to us for leadership and hope,'' Thurman said, noting that
Clinton had assured her that she would have ``the highest level of access
to the administration.''

The problem with the AIDS post which is often referred to as the AIDS
``czar'' is that it generates high expectations but carries little
authority. Thurman's predecessors have been unable to use the post as a
bully pulpit in the same way as retired General Barry McCaffrey, the
president's ``drug czar.'' But unlike AIDS, drug prevention is already an
issue at or near the top of the political agenda on both sides of the
political spectrum.

``President Clinton must grant the new AIDS czar access, responsibility and
delegation of meaningful authority,'' said Pat Christen, executive director
of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. ``Only with such authority can she
effectively face the dramatic changes taking place in managing and ending
the HIV epidemic especially the advent of genuinely hopeful protease
inhibitor drugs.''

NEEDLE EXCHANGES

Thurman's leadership will be tested in the coming months, especially on the
controversial issue of needle exchange programs. Although there are 128
such programs across the country, Congress has banned the use of federal
funds to support them.

Thurman acknowledged that a recent Health and Human Services report
``indicated that needle exchanges do not increase drug use, and do decrease
the rate of transmission of the virus.''

At the same time, she declined to say whether she would recommend that
President Clinton recommend to Congress that the ban be lifted. She said
the more important goal is to educate Congress about needle exchange
programs.

``That (HHS) report is pretty basic science, that is not rocket science,''
she said. ``The report is in the hands of Congress, and we have to see if
they are going to act on fallacy and fantasy, or are they going to act on
fact.''

`READ BETWEEN THE LINES'

Alexander Robinson, who is president of the San Francisco based National
Task Force on AIDS Prevention, said outsiders should ``read between the
lines'' of Thurman's comments. ``She works for the president and does not
want to be out in front of him or the secretary (of HHS),'' he said. ``I
believe that ultimately the secretary will certify that these programs are
appropriate.''

Winnie Stachelberg, legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, the
largest AIDS lobbying group, also said that the needle exchange issue will
not be resolved by the Clinton administration alone. ``We have to work with
her, the president and Congress because we can't forget that Congress
really has the ultimate say in what language goes into those bills.''

The only noticeable dissenting voice yesterday on Thurman's appointment
came from ACT UP, the outspoken AIDS advocacy group. ``Thurman might have
been a good bureaucrat, but certainly was no leader in the war against
AIDS,'' said ACT UP Georgia representative Roger Garza.

But Thurman did not seem perturbed by criticism of her appointment. ``ACT
UP projects a lot of anger, which is to be expected. It serves a purpose.
It makes all the rest of us listen,'' she said.