Leading LGBTQ, HIV, and Health Organizations Across U.S. Condemn Trump Administration’s Move to Close CDC HIV Prevention Division
Contact: media@sfaf.org
SAN FRANCISCO, March 19, 2025–Thirteen of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+, HIV, and health organizations are uniting 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.
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.
“We are profoundly outraged at the devastating news that HIV prevention will be defunded and deprioritized by the Trump administration,” said San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D.,” said San Francisco AIDS Foundation CEO Tyler TerMeer, Ph.D. “We have made such significant progress over the course of this epidemic in saving lives and preventing new HIV infections. Now is not the time to destabilize and threaten public health. We know that people of color – including Black and African American people in our communities, people who use drugs, and transgender communities – will be most affected by these devastating changes, bearing the brunt of new infections, and we call for an immediate reversal of this decision to defund CDC.”
“We are deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s reckless moves to defund and deprioritize HIV prevention. These abrupt and incomprehensible possible cuts threaten to reverse decades of progress, exposing our nation to a resurgence of a preventable disease with devastating and avoidable human and financial costs. Without the critical support of the CDC HIV Prevention Division, countless lives will be at risk—more people will fall ill, more lives will be lost, and we will be thrust back into an HIV epidemic reminiscent of the darkest chapters in public health history,” said the CEOs of the aligned organizations listed below.
The following LGBTQ, HIV and health organizations condemn the Trump administration’s planned actions to defund critical HIV prevention efforts at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
APLA Health, Los Angeles, CEO Craig E. Thompson
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, New York, CEO Patrick McGovern
CrescentCare, New Orleans, CEO Alice Riener
DAP Health, Palm Springs, CEO David Brinkman, MBA
Equitas Health, Columbus, CEO David Ernesto Munar
Fenway Health, Boston, CEO Jordina Shanks
Los Angeles LGBT Center, Los Angeles, CEO Joe Hollendoner, MSW
Philadelphia’s Mazzoni Center, Philadelphia, CMO Dr. Stacey Trooskin
Prism Health North Texas, Dallas, CEO John Carlo
San Francisco AIDS Foundation, San Francisco, CEO Dr. Tyler TerMeer
San Francisco Community Health Center, San Francisco, CEO Lance Toma
Thrive Alabama, Huntsville, CEO Mary Elizabeth Marr
Whitman-Walker Health, Washington, DC, CEO Naseema Shafi
AIDS United is also mobilizing support to defend HIV prevention funding to CDC. Find out more: https://aidsunited.org/action/policy-action-center/protect-cdc/
