Bush’s PEPFAR director bows out

The Obama administration has accepted the resignation of Dr. Mark Dybul, President Bush’s director of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), sources tell The Cable. “His office was packed up, he said goodybe to staff around 3:30, and seemed emotional,” a department source said Thursday. “Eric Goosby is the rumored replacement.”

Although Dybul had previously been reported to have been asked to stay on indefinitely, the Washington Blade reported Thursday that Obama “senior advisors were concerned about the negative reaction from some AIDS activists and reproductive rights groups to news that Dybul would be staying on. … A number of AIDS and reproductive rights groups have urged Obama to replace Dybul with someone the groups see as more likely to change the Bush administration’s insistence that at least some international AIDS relief funds be linked to abstinence-only programs.”

A call to the White House was not returned. The Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator sent queries to the State Department, which did not immediately respond.

UPDATE: A State Department spokeswoman confirmed that Dybul was asked to submit his resignation and is no longer serving in that role.