Bush AIDS panel
gets new members

Seven new members have been appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, a group that provides recommendations to the administration on fighting the domestic HIV pandemic, the New York Blade reports. The new PACHA members include: Freda McKissick Bush, a gynecologist; Shenequa Flucas of the Triangle AIDS Network; Robert Kabel of the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C.; David Malebranche, a specialist in African-American men's health; John Martin, president of the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences; Marilyn Maxwell, an HIV specialist; and Barbara Wise, cofounder of the abstinence program WiseChoices.

Bush took heat in March for appointing an antigay Baptist minister and two people with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry to PACHA. A Philadelphia minister, the Reverend Herbert Lusk who is the head of the Greater Exodus Baptist Church and a former Philadelphia Eagles football player, was named to the panel despite having no professional experience in health care or with AIDS issues. Lusk, who publicly endorsed George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, has lobbied for a federal amendment to restrict marriage to heterosexuals, opposes adoptions by gay men and lesbians, and pushes for abstinence-only sex education programs. Many AIDS advocates believe Lusk was appointed to PACHA as political payback for his support of Bush and Bush's right-wing social policies. (The Advocate)