Bush adds two more members to AIDS advisory council

President Bush has appointed two more members to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS, bringing his total appointments to the panel in August to three new members. The Washington Blade reports that Bush appointed Benny Primm, a New York City physician and chairman of the National Minority AIDS Council, and Franklyn Judson, a Denver physician and chief of infectious disease services for the Denver Health Medication Center, to the panel. Primm is a specialist in the use of substance abuse programs to help prevent the spread of HIV among those who use or abuse alcohol or drugs. Judson supports mandatory partner notification for everyone who tests positive for HIV infection. Bush previously appointed Edward Green, a senior research scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, to the council. Green supports a comprehensive approach to sex education that stresses abstinence and faithfulness to sex partners, but he has said he also encourages condom use for those who are sexually active and members of high-risk groups. However, AIDS activists told the Blade that Green has previously called condom promotion a "waste of time and money" and noted that he favors abstinence and monogamy programs to fight the spread of HIV in developing countries. "It is likely that he will use his position on the advisory council to support abstinence and fidelity-only programs and oppose condom promotion in the United States as well," Douglas Feldman, an anthropology professor at the State University of New York, told the Blade.