Boston-based Fenway Health has joined 12 other of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+, HIV and health organizations to raise the alarm about the Trump administration’s planned actions to defund critical HIV prevention efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The anticipated actions will severely impede the nation’s ability to prevent new HIV infections, undoing decades of hard-won progress toward ending the HIV epidemic.
HIV advocates across the country learned on March 18 about plans to end more than $1 billion in funding for the CDC’s HIV prevention initiatives, close the Division of HIV Prevention, and make deep cuts to CDC personnel. Funding changes will reduce nationwide access to powerful HIV prevention tools, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), surveillance initiatives to track outbreaks and infection rates, and prevention for not only HIV but also sexually transmitted infections (STIs), viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis (TB).
The new plan runs counter to the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative enacted in 2019 during Trump’s first administration. It aimed to reduce new HIV infections by 90% by 2030, and led to nearly 7,000 fewer HIV cases in 2022 compared to 2016. There are currently more than 30,000 new HIV infections that happen nationwide every year.
“It would be unfortunate if the administration defunded or limited funding for HIV prevention programs since the major reason for the nationwide decrease in infections is wider access to prevention, including PrEP. Multiple studies have shown that where prevention is available, infection rates are down. In the absence of an effective vaccine or cure, prevention is vital,” Kenneth Mayer, MD, MPH Medical Research Director at Fenway Health.
Closing the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention would not only have a devastating effect on the nation’s progress in preventing new cases of HIV and ending the epidemic, it would also result in rising costs for the country. Currently, HIV, STI, viral hepatitis, and TB prevention programs provide cost savings for the U.S. With an average lifetime cost of $500,000 for a person living with HIV, it would only take an average of 40 more new HIV infections per state every year to exceed the $1 billion saved by making cuts to the CDC Division of HIV Prevention. Without critical federal public health infrastructure devoted to HIV prevention, new cases of HIV would likely far exceed that estimate.
— from a Fenway Health press release
More: fenwayhealth.org; aidsunited.org
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