
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 2, 1993                   TAG: 9312020137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CLINTON PLEDGES TO FIGHT AIDS EPIDEMIC

President Clinton marked World AIDS Day with stamps, speeches and symbolic gestures, visiting AIDS patients in a hospital and pledging to fight an epidemic that has brought out "the best and the worst in America."

Post offices began selling millions of 29-cent stamps showing the red ribbon of AIDS awareness. The White House floodlights were being doused for 15 minutes Wednesday night as a reminder of the disease that has claimed more than 200,000 American lives.

AIDS quilts with mementoes of the dead were hung from the upper floors of the Old Executive Office Building next to the presidential mansion.

Health Secretary Donna Shalala and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders donned aprons and dished out scrambled eggs and sausages to HIV-infected homeless men in a clinic atop an inner-city shelter. Half the Cabinet marked the day at other ceremonies.

"For nearly every American with eyes and ears open, the face of AIDS is no longer the face of a stranger," said the president said in an emotional speech before an audience of doctors, researchers and activists.

by CNB