Under Satcher's lackluster leadership at the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention since 1993, HIV infections have skyrocketed among a new generation of Gay and bisexual men, injection drug users, their partners, and African-American women.

"Instead of targeting high risk populations with a hard hitting message, Dr. Satcher has wasted millions of dollars for HIV prevention and education on watered-down media campaigns that say nothing.

"He's been more concerned about funding the bureaucracy than saving lives." states Steve Michael, HIV+ spokesperson for ACT UP Washington. Activists note that most new HIV infections result from needle sharing, and sexual intercourse without latex condoms and water-based lubricants. Yet even this most basic information fails to appear in CDC funded HIV prevention campaigns.

The Surgeons General post has remained vacant since 1994, when President Clinton fired his long-time friend Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who suggested at a World AIDS Day event in 1994 that discussions suggesting masturbation might be incorporated into age-appropriate safe sex messages.

Surgeons General like Elders and C. Everett Koop earned the respect and admiration of AIDS activists by standing up to politicians. "Who do you want leading the war on AIDS, Churchill, or Chamberlain?" adds Michael. ACT UP Washington campaigned against the nomination of Dr. Henry Foster after Foster announced on ABC's Nightline that he opposed condom distribution as a component of HIV prevention.

States ACT UP member Wayne Turner, who was arrested after disrupting Foster's Senate confirmation hearing, "Take a good look at Satcher's AIDS record. AIDS patients got turned away from Meharry Medical Center while Satcher was its President, and Foster was its director. We have the newspaper accounts that prove it."

In the past four years, free condoms and water-based lubricants have disappeared from Gay bars, shelters, prisons, and schools. "Under Dr. Satcher, CDC AIDS funding has gone to pay for high salaries, travel expenses, and conferences in resort cities for a bunch of bureaucrats riding the gravy train. Just think how many lives could be saved if money went to condoms and lube, bleach kits and clean needles," adds Turner.