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At the direction of the Trump administration, the National Institutes of Health has cut funding to several HIV-related programs, including HIV-related research grants hoping to one day end the deadly disease.
"The termination of numerous federal grants for HIV prevention and treatment is a cause for alarm," Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean and Hunterdon Professor of Public Health & Health Equity at Rutgers University, told CNN.
"HIV remains a significant public health challenge throughout the nation, particularly for sexual and gender minority individuals and people of color," Halkitis said. "As a public health dean, HIV researcher for over two decades, and proud gay man, I am deeply concerned about the impacts these grant eliminations will have on our ability to end AIDS."
CNN notes that the cuts are a part of an executive order and are "in accordance with the Presidential Memo 'Radical Transparency About Wasteful Spending.'" Apparently the Trump administration believes too much money is spent on "programs, contracts, and grants that do not promote the interests of the American people."
During his first term as president, Trump stated during his 2019 State of the Union speech that he would end AIDS by 2030, but it looks like, as with many things Trump-related, that was not true. His second term isn't about assisting the people; it's about saving money at all costs, even if that cost is people's lives. Grants looking to prevent HIV and possibly end HIV-related deaths were no longer in keeping with Trump's agenda.
This sudden push to end spending in areas that were once of concern is directly related to the Trump administration's hatred for diversity, equity, and inclusion. A good portion of HIV research funds were directly spent on the effects of HIV on both the LGBTQ and marginalized communities, two groups that Trump abhors.
Dr. Lisa Bowleg, a professor of applied social psychology in George Washington University's Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, was hoping to explore the "intersectional discrimination and social structural factors to understand Black men's risk for mental health and substance abuse issues," which also looked at HIV. Her funding has now been cut.
"As for the HIV piece, it is disturbing that more than four decades into the HIV epidemic, Black gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (and also Black heterosexual women, by the way) continue to have disproportionately higher HIV incidence and prevalence compared with white and other racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.," Bowleg told CNN. "Terminating the research does not result in a termination of the problem; it simply exacerbates it."
CNN notes that since 1981, "HIV has led to the deaths of more than 700,000 people in the U.S. More than 1.2 million Americans now live with HIV, according to federal statistics. About 13% of people who have HIV don't know they have it -- one driver of the virus's continuing spread."
Experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now worried that their office may be hit with drastic budget cuts as they've been allotted some $1.3 billion for the 2023 fiscal year to prevent and control HIV, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis, and infectious disease. Most of that funding is spent on "state and local health departments and community-based organizations and about a quarter goes to the CDC for labs, outbreak responses and other costs," CNN notes.
USAID has been gutted, which means that HIV-research and prevention outside of the U.S. has been cut, effectively ending America's management of an HIV epidemic overseas, and now state funding has been slashed.
On Monday, the United Nations warned that we can expect a "surge" in AIDS deaths and new infections.
"[We] will see it come back, and we see people dying the way we saw them in the '90s and in 2000s," UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima told CNN. Byanyima noted that there would be a "tenfold increase" from the 600,000 AIDS-related deaths recorded globally in 2023.
"This is just pure chaos and insanity," Dr. Colleen Kelley, chair of the HIV Medicine Association, told the news station.
"It's just a massive, massive bloodbath," Kelley said.
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