Archives » Friday, January 30, 2009
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Newsweek
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Jan 30, 2009 04:27 PM
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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