HIV+Hep in the News

“Today, the Trump administration eliminated the staff of several CDC HIV prevention offices, including entire offices conducting public health communication campaigns, modeling and behavioral surveillance, capacity building, and non-lab research,” said a press release Tuesday by the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute. The organization also noted the “reassignments” of Jonathan Mermin, director of the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, and Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Both were moved to the Indian Health Service.

“It’s just a massive assault and decimation of HIV prevention—they are really focused on gutting prevention and research,” says Carl Schmid, the executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, who is tracking the layoffs. The cuts affected staff for the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS communications staff, and more, he says.

Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, expressed deep concern over the implications of these actions. In a statement, he warned: “In a matter of just a couple days, we are losing our nation’s ability to prevent HIV. The expertise of the staff, along with their decades of leadership, has now been destroyed and cannot be replaced. We will feel the impacts of these decisions for years to come, and it will certainly, sadly, translate into an increase in new HIV infections and higher medical costs.