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Wait! We're Not Done with Bush Yet...

3:18 PM, January 19, 2009 | Comments (25)
Celebratory is a safe way to describe the mood in Washington. And not just for Barack Obama's big day on Tuesday. When Obama raises his right hand, it will mark for millions of his supporters the end of something else. At Dupont Circle in Northwest Washington,...

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Posted Friday, January 30, 2009 4:27 PM

Why Was AIDS Relief Chief Let Go?

Newsweek
By Eve Conant

Among the Bush administration’s few undisputed successes was its aggressive fight against the global spread of HIV and AIDS. Liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and scientists didn’t agree on much during the last eight years, but they were unified in their enthusiasm for PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which Congress recently voted to expand into a $48 billion commitment, the largest by any nation, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis worldwide. So when PEPFAR’s respected director, Dr. Mark Dybul, was swiftly and surprisingly pushed out of his job the day after President Obama’s inauguration, AIDS activists began to worry that the new administration might fumble the one thing the old group got right.

According to a column in by Michael Gerson in The Washington Post, Dybul had been asked to stay on for “several months,” but then suddenly found himself out of a job on Jan. 21. Dybul, an openly gay physician, had been “scapegoated for the marginal portions of the Bush AIDS initiative such as an emphasis on sexual abstinence and a ban on aiding prostitutes,” according to a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed Friday. “These are intemperate charges that miss the big picture: a conservative in the White House that woke up to a global scourge and actually did something.” Since its launch in 2003, the program has supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 2.1 million men, women and children, and under Bush its funding and bipartisan support had both steadily grown. In a statement to Newsweek, Pastor Rick Warren, who gave the invocation at Obama’s inauguration, and his wife Kay said Dybul’s “abrupt removal leaves both the initiative and the millions of people who depend on it at risk at a critical time of growth.” But evangelical leaders and conservative columnists are hardly the only voices of concern. AIDS advocates, medical students and former Obama volunteers have been firing off letters to the new administration pleading for an open process to help identify top candidates for the job, which is an appointed post at the State Department. “[I]t is imperative that the move to fill this position is not made in haste,” urged an editorial in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

Several names were in circulation this week around Washington, including Dr. Eric Goosby, a former Director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Policy during the Clinton administration and director of the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, which in 2002 partnered with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation for work with the Rwandan government. (Some AIDS advocates are watching closely to see how the connections to the Clinton Foundation may play a role in State Department appointments over the coming weeks). Other possibilities: Harvard’s Jim Yong Kim, former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department, Nils Daulaire, former President and CEO of the Global Health Council. All three declined to comment, as did the State Department, except to say that a replacement has not yet been named. With the economy tanking, AIDS advocates are worried that PEPFAR’s $48 million pledge may be in jeopardy. And with the handling of Dybul’s departure, there are lingering concern that the office may not be accorded the same status as it was under the Bush administration. Looking ahead, they are pinning their hopes now on an open process, with a committee consisting of medical professionals, scientists and civil society leaders to help choose the next director. The argument? Millions of lives are at stake. “There are a lot of global stakeholders who want to be heard,” says Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. “We’ve been hoping this new administration will carry out business in the transparent way they’ve promised.”

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Member Comments

Posted By: Ivan23 (March 15, 2009 at 5:50 PM)

The comments here show why I detest the liberals as much as the conservatives. Just once I would like someone to admit when a wrong has been done and quit basing there comments on politics. If this man did a good job and the liberals got rid of him I want to know why and it would be no different if it was the conservatives. Saying that the current administration had secret reasons for doing so is crap , these people are elected officials and should answer to the people that they work for.

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Posted By: Vladimir Enlow (January 31, 2009 at 11:04 PM)

Not hard to figure this one out.  He was with the old guard and was following the old guard's rules, whether or not he actually drank the Kool-Aid or not.  Considering Dybul's sexual orientation and his academic background, he was in more of a position that anyone to know that tying the foreign aid to a pro-abstinence, pro-life agenda was limiting.  But if Dybul didn't agree to it, Bush probably would have ditched him for a evangelical-licking yesman or scuttled the program entirely.

Giving Dybul the gate clears the way for BHO to appoint someone who doesn't owe Bush and his allies anything.  We all know the new administration is borderline paranoid about having anyone in its ranks who could be tied to the failings of the Bush years, and Dybul's previous associations provide an "in" for people who still want PEPFAR to hue to a rightist agenda.

I can't say I agree with the decision entirely--most likely, Dybul was caught between a rock and the proverbial hard place.  But I do understand why it was done, and how it could be seen as necessary to the improvement and expansion of the program.

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Posted By: annelouise (January 31, 2009 at 9:02 PM)

Oh please. Maybe they followed the true money trail and some things didn't ad up. I trust our President will do the right thing.

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