Grapevine

By PAUL GRAY/

Who's the Boss? The Secretary of Health and Human Services has been criticized for being an ineffectual spokesman at the White House. Now it appears that Louis Sullivan can't make his subordinates listen to him either. Angered by his treatment at the San Francisco AIDS conference -- his speech was drowned out by ACT UP hecklers and he was pelted with condoms -- he returned to Washington and issued an angry order that contacts with ACT UP should be limited to those that are "necessary and productive." Translation: none. But Sullivan's subordinate, Anthony Fauci, head of AIDS research

at the National Institutes of Health, last week told a gathering of 1,000 researchers and activists at a conference in Bethesda, Md., that he still favors "the inclusion of AIDS constituency representation at every level." So much for Sullivan's ukase. Fauci can oppose his boss because somebody higher up likes him. George Bush called Fauci a hero during a presidential debate and has twice asked him to become director of the NIH.

With reporting by DAVID ELLIS