Crowley To Head Office of National AIDS Policy

According to USA Today, President Barack Obama has selected Jeffrey S. Crowley, a senior researcher from Georgetown University, to direct his Office of National AIDS Policy. Specifically, the office will be tasked with coordinating government efforts to reduce HIV infection in the U.S. and leading treatment of Americans with HIV/AIDS.

According to President Obama's 2010 budget, he has pledged increased resources to domestic HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. No dollar amount has been specified to date.

Crowley has experience with the National Association of People with AIDS. His areas of expertise also include Medicaid policy. He is a former U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, and served as a science teacher in Swaziland.

"It’s exactly the kind of integration that folks in the HIV community have been talking about for a while," said Earnest Hopkins, federal policy official for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. He also said the choice of Crowley for the position is "really good news."

Like all of us, Crowley will have much work to do. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported it had been underestimating new HIV cases in the U.S. New blood tests and statistical methods show 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006, which is a 40 percent increase over the annual estimate used for the past dozen years.