AFC Meets with White House Officials

Senior White House officials invited a small group of U.S. AIDS advocates, including AFC President/CEO Mark Ishaug and AFC Vice President David Ernesto Munar, to a meeting last week in Washington, DC.

Longtime Chicagoan Tina Tchen, now director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, greeted the group at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Obama Administration planned the meeting as an opportunity to receive input from a core group of AIDS advocates, she said. Assisting Tchen are Brian Bond, a longtime LGBT advocate who is openly HIV-positive, and Karen Richardson who previously worked in then-Senator Barack Obama’s Capitol Hill office.

The Director of the Domestic Policy Council Melody Barnes led a lengthy discussion with the group about a array of community priorities. She described the White House Office for National AIDS Policy as an integral component of her department, which develops White House policy on issues as diverse as healthcare reform to urban affairs and social/civic engagement.

On February 26, the White House announced the appointment of Jeffrey S. Crowley, MPH, as the new director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. A longtime friend of AFC's, Crowley served as a key organizer of the HIV Health Care Access Working Group, which advocates for HIV-specific Medicare, Medicaid, and other health policy reforms. Formerly of Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, Crowley's office will be tasked with the development of a National AIDS Strategy.

During the meeting, Munar presented Barnes with a letter urging the White House to invest in HIV and STD prevention activities as part of public health spending authorized by the economic stimulus package. Munar also presented Barnes with 211 individually signed petitions from 34 states urging forceful leadership against the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic. Munar and Marjorie Hill, President/CEO of Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York, collected the petition at the annual summit of National Gay and Lesbian Task Force held in January.

Other participants at the meeting included Hill, Rebecca Haag of the AIDS Action Council, Phill Wilson of the Black AIDS Institute, Dr. Celia Maxwell of Howard University Hospital, David Holtgrave of Johns Hopkins University, Kandy Ferree of the National AIDS Fund, Paul Kawata of the National Minority AIDS Council, Craig Thompson of AIDS Project Los Angeles, Mark Courtier of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and Katie Caldwell of Legacy Community Health Services of Houston.

Obama and AFC timeline

Obama's History as an Illinois AIDS Advocate

Photos

Mark Ishaug's Windy City Times Op-Ed (Jan. 9, 2008)

Federal Issues