Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 30, 1993 TAG: 9306300111
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Kristine Gebbie, who was appointed by President Clinton last week after others declined the post, said she has been given "clear authority to work across the Cabinet" on federal efforts to deal with the epidemic.
She appeared on TV talk shows Tuesday morning and said in an interview carried on the Fox network that "I can't work miracles."
Later in that interview, she said her staff will be "very small - four or five people at maximum."
Gebbie said that did not bother her because her job "isn't about building bureaucracy."
She told her interviewers that she hopes to focus the government's efforts by getting different parts of the bureaucracy to talk to each other.
"A lot of people within agencies are concerned about our failures to be truly coordinated and to move as aggressively as we should have," she said.
In two of those areas, education and needle exchanges, Gebbie indicated that the government will take a more liberal approach.
"They do work in some communities," she said of needle exchanges, the providing of clean needles to drug users to slow the spread of AIDS by contaminated needles. "We're looking forward to a major review of needle exchange programs due out in a very short period of time."
She was more cautious when questioned on the subject of distributing condoms to adolescents in schools.
"Anybody who is sexually active should have ready access to means of protection, which includes condoms," she said.
But whether to give them out in schools is a local decision, she said.
"They're not an expensive product and they're available over the counter lots of places," she said. "So who should hand them out is not the heart of the dialogue."
Gebbie's appointment came shortly before the National Commission on AIDS issued a report that criticized the Clinton administration for being more talk than action in dealing with the disease.
Administration officials have said action on the AIDS front would be coming soon.
The Social Security Administration on Tuesday announced that it was issuing new rules to make it easier for people with the AIDS-causing virus to get federal disability benefits.
The rules were proposed under the Bush administration and have largely been in effect since late 1991.
In all, the government will pay less than $10 million a year over what it is already paying, said a Department of Health and Human Services official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
by CNB