President Bush's AIDS czar, Dr. Tom Coburn, has canceled his subscription to Poz magazine in a huff after the gay lifestyle glossy ran a racy cover photo of 80 nude, HIV-positive readers.

Coburn, co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, was apparently so offended by famed photographer Spencer Tunick's nude cover shot for Poz's 10th anniversary issue, he faxed a handwritten letter to the magazine's Meatpacking District offices last week, scrawling, "Please remove from mailing list immediately," over his name and address.

Poz founder and chairman Sean Strub, who is one of Tunick's nude subjects on the cover, says he's surprised by Coburn's objection to the fleshy photo.

"The irony is that literally this is the only complaint that we have received so far about the cover," Strub fumed to PAGE SIX. "He's a doctor - why is he so disgusted by naked bodies? You'd think that even if he disagreed with us, he'd still get the magazine for the information. It's indicative of the hostility that those of us living with AIDS face from this administration. We disgust them."

But a spokesman for Coburn, who is currently running for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Oklahoma, suggested that he might simply have been annoyed that the nude cover was sent to his Muskogee, Okla., doctor's office.

"I think his problem was having all these naked bodies on a cover destined for his waiting room," Coburn campaign spokesman Curt Price said. "I think as far as getting information from the magazine, he gets information from a plethora of sources already, and he will not be impacted by not getting the magazine."

This isn't the first time that Coburn has run afoul of AIDS activists. The New York AIDS Coalition protested his appointment to the HIV/AIDS council, claiming that the outspoken conservative pushed legislation during his three terms in the House of Representatives that overemphasized abstinence-only education.

In the 1990s, Coburn earned a reputation among young Capitol Hill staffers and interns who were lured with free pizza to his lectures on sexually transmitted diseases. The talks were marked by their pro-abstinence message and a stomach-turning slideshow featuring graphic, clinical images of sexually transmitted infections.

Anyone who believes that Tom Coburn subscribed to Poz magazine to put in his Muskogee waiting room should immediately go bid for the Golden Gate Bridge on eBay.