AIDS PANEL HOPES THIRD TRY'S A CHARM

PRINCETON - It is not the first time New Jersey's health experts have
convened to advise the governor on ways to treat and prevent AIDS.

In fact, it's the third time in the past 10 years.

But state Assistant Health Commissioner Laurence Ganges says Gov. James E.
McGreevey's new AIDS advisory panel, which met for the first time Wednesday,
will be different from its predecessors.

This group - the 23-member Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS and Related
Blood-Borne Pathogens -will be much more action oriented, Ganges said.

It plans to make recommendations for implementing needle-exchange programs,
protecting housing opportunities for AIDS patients and confronting cuts in
Medicare.

More importantly, it will try to sell its ideas to a Legislature that has
been resistant to act on past recommendations from similar councils.

Ganges, a 14-year-veteran of the Health Department, said New Jersey's AIDS
problem is too large to ignore this time around.

"Things need to change in this state," Ganges said. "The numbers are still
going up. We need to do something very different. Maybe we need to start
over."

New Jersey's population is the ninth largest in the country, but it ranks
fifth in total AIDS cases. It also has the highest rate of HIV-infected
women and the third-highest rate of pediatric AIDS in the nation.

At the same time, New Jersey remains one of only two states - Delaware being
the other - with no form of access to clean needles without a prescription.

Allowing access to clean needles has reduced the spread of HIV and AIDS in
other states.

"Clearly, it's a political issue," said the panel's leader Dr. Robert
Johnson, an AIDS expert with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New
Jersey.

"Everyone in public health agrees you can control the epidemic through
something involving needles," Johnson said. "Some people believe (needle
exchange) supports drug abuse. The research has shown that's not true."

Johnson heads a panel that includes some of the same members appointed by
former Govs. Jim Florio and Christie Whitman.

Those committees watched their recommendations to change the state's
clean-needle access law go ignored.

Although needle-exchange remains the most talked-about issue, it is not the
only topic the panel will discuss.

The group also plans to look into the spreading of Hepatitis C among the
state's inmate population.

An estimated 75 percent of state inmates are infected with the disease, and
most of those prisoners will return to the public in the next three years.

One advisory panel member, Terrence Zealand, director of the AIDS Resource
Foundation for Children in Newark, voiced concerns about a $1 million
reduction in federal funding for housing programs that hits New Jersey in
October.

Zealand said the reduction would cut deep into a program that provides
housing for homeless people with AIDS.

"It's a matter of putting the social side of HIV on the consciousness of the
Senators in Washington," Zealand said. "We're getting cut at a time when we
have 300 people on waiting lists. It's a human tragedy."

McGreevey signed an executive order creating the AIDS advisory council in
March. The group has two years to come up with a report, although health
officials are hopeful the state will begin to act on some if its
recommendations much sooner.

"It looks like a good start, though it's taken a while to get off the
ground," Zealand said. "We're waiting to see how the McGreevey
administration is going to respond."