President Bush was saddened to hear of the death of Belinda Mason, the only member of his National Commission on AIDS who was infected with the disease, a spokeswoman said.
Mason died of AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 33 Monday at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., where she had been hospitalized since last Wednesday.Mason became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, when she received a blood transfusion during the delivery of her second child in 1987 in a hospital in Hartford, Ky., near her hometown of Utica, Ky.
"The president is sad to hear of her death. The president and Mrs. Bush send their sympathy to the family," deputy White House press secretary Judy Smith said.
In August 1988, Mason founded the first organization in Kentucky and Indiana for people with HIV and traveled throughout the country speaking about the human side of the AIDS epidemic and providing education and perspective on the disease.
She was president of the National Association of People With AIDS when Bush appointed her to the National Commission on AIDS, the only person on the 15-member commission to actually have the disease.
Her selection by Bush did not prevent her from voicing criticism against the president, however.
On Aug. 2, she wrote a letter to Bush asking him to use his influence to keep people with AIDS from being stigmatized and said she opposed compulsory testing of health-care workers as well as laws barring people with AIDS from entering the United States.
"Mr. President, doctors don't give people AIDS - they care for people with it," she wrote.