President Clinton Monday named Sandra Thurman as the next director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, prompting criticism from at least one prominent gay rights group.
Thurman is a member of the president's advisory council on HIV/AIDS and has served as executive director of AIDS Atlanta, which provides health services to AIDS victims in that city.
But ACT-UP spokesman Wayne Turner described Thurman as the fourth in a series of "ineffective, no-name bureaucrats" who have been named to the job. ACT-UP wanted Clinton to name a more senior official and make the job part of his Cabinet.
Thurman also serves on the executive committee of Cities Advocating Emergency AIDS Relief and from 1993-96 was the director of advocacy programs at the task force for child survival and development at the Carter Center in Atlanta.
Thurman will head the office Clinton has charged with coordinating all national efforts to find a vaccine against the AIDS virus. "She is passionate. She is committed. She is difficult to say no to," Clinton said in naming Thurman.
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