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AIDS Panel Director Leaves Amid Controversy over Activist
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Washington Post (Feb 5, 2003) Ceci Connolly
Patricia Ware, the executive director of the Presidential
Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, left her post days after
activist Jerry Thacker, selected for the panel on her
recommendation, withdrew amid revelations he had described AIDS
as the "gay plague" and homosexuality as a "death style." Bush
administration officials said Ware was being promoted to a more
influential role in the Department of Health and Human Services.
But several sources close to both the White House and PACHA
involved in the deliberations over Ware's departure asserted that
she was moved to avoid further embarrassment over Thacker's
selection.
Claude Allen, deputy secretary at HHS and a longtime friend
of Ware, announced her departure on Friday at the conclusion of
PACHA's two-day meeting. A veteran of the first Bush
administration with ties to the religious right, Ware was a
leading proponent of abstinence-only sex education and was former
director of the conservative Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV
Policy.
"She is being promoted to work within the office of the
assistant secretary of health. She will be broadening and
expanding her portfolio," Allen said yesterday. "She will now be
working across the board in many areas of health. We need our
best people working on health issues." Allen said White House
staffer Josephine Robinson will temporarily take over the council
job.
For several months, AIDS activists and some council members
grumbled that Ware overreached in the job, frequently imposing
her personal ideological views in setting the council's agenda.
Much of the controversy revolved around comments Ware made
regarding the role of gay white men in spreading HIV and in
controlling many of the most influential AIDS organizations. "It
appeared at times that she wanted to blame the gay community for
AIDS," said Stuart Burden, a Levi Strauss Foundation executive
who completed his term on PACHA last year.
Other activists, who requested anonymity, said that Ware
seemed to be attempting to broaden the AIDS coalition by adding
minorities and religious activists. "The theory of getting
someone who can speak to the evangelical community is a good
idea," said one council member. "In this instance, she just
picked the wrong person."
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