 The appointment as executive director of AIDS Action Council was criticized by an activist with ACT UP/Washington, who said that Barnes' appointment was a "commitment to mediocrity" and that a director living with AIDS should have been chosen.In 1992, while serving as the associate commissioner of the New York City Department of Health he wrote and managed the adoption of new health regulations that allowed the public health authorities to detain and treat patients with tuberculosis who had failed to take their anti-tuberculosis medications.Barnes participated in the first-ever White House Conference on HIV and AIDS on December 6, 1995.