Agencies Decry Stalling on AIDS Funds : Health: Sen. Jesse Helms blocks renewal of act, saying ‘revolting conduct’ is cause of the disease. One local director says lives are being sacrificed for political gain.

WASHINGTON —  Asserting that their “deliberate, disgusting and revolting conduct” is the cause of their disease, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) has stalled renewal of the nation’s largest health care program for people with AIDS, a delay that threatens to shut down a host of services in Los Angeles if not resolved by summer’s end.

The Ryan White Care Act of 1990--named for the late Indiana teen-ager who acquired the virus from a blood transfusion--expires Sept. 30, and Helms has put a hold on the bill that would renew it for another five years.

Only Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) can move the bill to the Senate floor, where it enjoys vast bipartisan support. But critics say Dole has hesitated to advance the measure while he courts the Republican conservative wing in his bid for the presidential nomination.

“What this shows is AIDS continues to be held hostage to political interests, particularly presidential politics,” said Phill Wilson, director of public policy for AIDS Project Los Angeles, a recipient of Ryan White Act funds. “It appears there are some members of Congress willing to sacrifice the lives of American citizens for their own political gain.”

California receives $110 million in federal funds, the second-largest chunk of the Ryan White program that this year provided $624 million for care and treatment of the disease nationally.

AIDS officials say that without it, a host of medical services would shut down almost immediately, leaving scores of AIDS patients without treatment and overburdening the county’s already stretched emergency and indigent care network.

A bill to reauthorize the act for five years passed a Senate committee unanimously in March and has 61 co-sponsors, including Dole, making it filibuster-proof. A House committee is set to consider the legislation in a few weeks.

But Helms, a fierce opponent of gay rights, has long argued that too much public money is spent treating people with AIDS. He did not return phone calls Wednesday or Thursday seeking comment, but recently told the New York Times: “We’ve got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts.”

A Dole spokeswoman said the senator continues to support the Ryan White Act. “He is a co-sponsor and is committed to moving it forward,” said aide Joyce Campbell, although she could not say when.

Campaign spokesman Nelson Warfield rejected the idea that Dole is holding up action on the bill for political reasons. “Politics--presidential or otherwise--has no impact on Sen. Dole’s actions regarding the Ryan White legislation,” he said.

President Clinton this week wrote letters to Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) calling for reauthorization of funds to treat a virus that has become the leading cause of death among men and women between ages 25 and 44.

“At a time when AIDS is the leading cause of death of young adults, we cannot let reauthorization of the CARE Act be held up by divisive arguments about how people contracted HIV,” Clinton wrote.

AIDS groups are as concerned about the political ramifications of the program’s troubled course as they are about the funds. Los Angeles activists are planning an anti-Dole demonstration in response to his handling of the reauthorizing legislation.

“Bob Dole, the Senate majority leader and likely Republican presidential nominee, doesn’t have the guts to back down Jesse Helms, who has been exercising too much power over AIDS issues for a very long time,” said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Health Care Foundation, the largest single recipient of Ryan White funds in the nation. “If Bob Dole allows Jesse Helms to hold the Ryan White funds hostage, then Bob Dole is responsible. And he should pay a political price for that.”

Winnie Stachelberg, co-chairwoman of the National Organizations Responding to AIDS, a Washington coalition of 150 groups, said she believes Dole is needlessly distancing himself from the bill. She cites a poll by the Tarrance Group showing half of Republican men and Republicans over 45--two groups traditionally less tolerant of AIDS funding--saying the Ryan White Act should be increased or kept at current levels.