Foot-Dragging on AIDS

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has emphasized the importance of national, state and local commissions to coordinate and accelerate effortsto contain the pandemic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome--AIDS--but the response, unfortunately, has been slow and mixed.

A national commission is now in place. Unfortunately, President Reagan has, with a few exceptions, ignored the experts on AIDS in selecting the commission--a decision that has not inspired confidence in the prospects for its work. Some of his choices are perplexing, for he drew on persons whose views are at variance with those of leading public-health officials already engaged in work on AIDS. But at least he has wisely included among members a distinguished physician who also is a homosexual, assuring sensitivity in the commission to the group most affected in the United States.

There is paralysis rather than progress in Sacramento, where Republican lawmakers, in the absence of leadership from Gov. George Deukmejian, appear determined to make AIDS a political issue. Legislation to establish a state commission, and to implement other recommendations of the surgeon general, has passed the Assembly but languishes in a Senate committee that could not even muster a quorum for an initial vote.

Los Angeles County, finally catching up with neighboring Orange and San Diego counties, has completed nominations for its 18-member AIDS commission. Some experienced AIDS experts are among the commission members. Confirmation of some of the nominations has not yet been completed, and there will be no meeting until Aug. 13--a month after the ordinance creating the commission came into effect.

A further contribution has been made by Mayor Tom Bradley by creating the Black Los Angeles Coordinating Commission, a useful step in addressing the worsening problem of AIDS in minority communities. On a national basis, blacks constitute about 25% of all cases, but preventive education programs have been slow to start.

Leadership of the commissions at all levels will be the decisive factor. President Reagan chose Dr. W. Eugene Mayberry, chief executive of the Mayo Clinic but not an authority on AIDS, to head the national commission. It remains to be seen whether his administrative and general medical skills will be matched by vigorous leadership--a job complicated by the disparate composition of the commission itself.

At the county level, the new commission will be replacing a task force that made a major contribution with strong, direct involvement and the outspoken candor of its chairman, Dr. Neil Schram. Some of the task force members, but not Schram, will be part of the new commission. It has an extraordinary opportunity to rally the resources of the region in constructive programs to respond to this enormous public-health emergency. But each day of delayed action is to be regretted.