Aug 06, 2004  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams named Lydia Watts, whom Chicago AIDS activists describe as a no-nonsense taskmaster and self-proclaimed born-again Christian, as the new head of the city’s HIV/AIDS Administration on Wednesday.

Williams also announced he has nominated Detroit physician and former U.S. Veterans Administration official Gregg A. Pane to become director of the D.C. Department of Health, which has jurisdiction over HAA.

Watts worked in the late 1990s as a director of contracts for the Chicago Department of Public Health’s AIDS office and later as director of the department’s health care programs for the city’s prisons.

From 2000 to 2004 she worked as health policy director for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, where she specialized in domestic and international AIDS programs.

AIDS activists and a former official at the Chicago health department said Watts, while bright and highly knowledgeable on AIDS issues, drew criticism for her outspoken opposition to clean needle exchange programs as a means of curtailing the spread of HIV among injection drug users.

Critics also said her support for faith-based and abstinence-only HIV prevention programs and her frequent discussion of religion in the workplace — which included giving Bibles to employees — raised concern among some that she favored faith-based programs over other strategies for HIV prevention.

In a District Building press conference, in which Williams announced the appointments, Watts said she would closely follow the policy of the mayor and the D.C. Department of Health, which have supported needle exchange programs. City officials have said such programs are needed because the sharing of needles among addicts has been deemed one of the main modes of HIV transmission in the District.

“I believe in needle exchange, and I believe that this administration believes in needle exchange,” Watts said. “And my goal, as director of the HIV/AIDS office, is to push the administration’s agenda.”

When asked if she personally favors needle exchange programs, Watts said, “My personal opinions are different from my professional opinions. And my goal is to stay steadfast in what the administration would like to see and what needs to be done for the District and its constituents.”

She added, “Therefore, I believe that needle exchange is a methodology that will decrease the spread of HIV disease among populations.”

Watts welcomes others to fight
In an interview after the news conference, Watts said she was not biased toward any one method of HIV prevention and would not favor faith-based programs over others.

“My thoughts are this,” she said. “Anybody who wants to be in the fight for HIV and helping people who are HIV infected, we welcome them in this fight. There’s no one over the other.”

Added Watts, “When you look at communities that are most impacted by this disease, some of the things that interfere with us getting information out is our failure to talk about frank sexual and drug activities that place people at risk.”

A biography of Watts released by the mayor’s office says Watts brings more than 17 years of public health experience to the District government from a wide range of work in AIDS and public health issues.

It says that as director of contracts at the Chicago health department’s AIDS office, Watts served as the city’s “principle liaison for all HIV/AIDS and STD grant-related activities, managing more than $6.8 million in funding.”

The biography notes that Watts, while working at Rainbow/PUSH, created the first National Ministers HIV/AIDS Testing Initiative and convened a panel on Women & HIV Disease that included former President Bill Clinton and the first ladies of Nigeria and Haiti.

Thom Dombkowski, the gay former director of grants management and information for the Chicago health department, said he and other employees at the department were troubled by Watts’ frequent discussion of religion and biblical passages at the workplace.

He said Watts gave him and other employees Bibles, saying that reading certain biblical passages would have a “calming” effect and improve workers’ outlook on their jobs.

D.C. Mayor trong>Anthony Williams (rear) appointed trong>Gregg Pane to lead the District’s Department of Health on Wednesday.

“She makes no apologies for being a Bible-thumping Christian conservative,” Dombkowski said.

According to Dombkowski, Watts, while an official at the Chicago health department’s AIDS office, alerted city park police to a community group’s outreach program to gay men of color who cruised in public parks.

“The police increased their patrols, scaring off the cruising men,” Domblowski said, making it more difficult for the group to conduct its outreach efforts related to HIV prevention. He said ...