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HHS cuts threaten HIV/AIDS response

The Trump administration is potentially undoing decades of work to mitigate the HIV epidemic and holding up upcoming progress by slashing the country’s public health workforce, experts say.

© AP

When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to severely cut the workforce of his department, entire offices dedicated to helping combat the epidemic were gutted, worrying HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) experts.

Within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) division focusing on HIV, five branches were eliminated completely, including the research, surveillance and prevention communication branches.

Top staffers including Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention; and Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), were reassigned to the Indian Health Service.

Along with these offices, research grants to study HIV have been halted, likely due to their focus on Black, Latino and transgender communities, who are disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS.

“I don’t understand what ‘No DEI’ means. Because everything that we do is based on disparities — you know, whether you’re Black, you’re gay, you’re trans — and also it could be geographic in certain areas. I mean, that’s how you address an infectious disease. You go where the epidemic is,” Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV Hepatitis Policy Institute, told The Hill. “If you ignore them, it’s just going to get worse.”

Kennedy has in the past questioned aspects of the HIV epidemic, expressing doubt that HIV causes AIDS, a fact acknowledged by both the CDC and the World Health Organization.

And HIV isn’t the only STI that will be affected by these cuts.

“The HIV and STI response in the United States is inextricably linked,” said David C. Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “What happens to one program impacts the other program. What impacts these two distinct issues also impacts our larger ability to deal with infectious diseases in the U.S.”

Two branches of the CDC’s STI division were also eliminated in Kennedy’s culling, adding to the loss of “many, many years of scientific and administrative expertise,” said Harvey.

According to Harvey, the federal government provides the majority of STI funding for some state health departments, meaning a drastic reduction at the federal level would be “devastating” for them, particularly for “rural, low-income southern states.”

Read more here.

Welcome to The Hill’s Health Care newsletter, we’re Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health.

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