Out gay Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) has sent a letter to Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asking about the Trump administration’s “shameful” and “widespread” elimination of HIV and AIDS-related research, vaccines, and life-saving programs, questioning whether their elimination is “rooted in science or in misinformation and disinformation previously spread by Kennedy.”
The letter, which was sent on July 17 and co-signed by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), notes that the Trump administration eliminated the HIV prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), terminated or delayed multiple grant awards related to HIV prevention, ended a $258 million HIV vaccination research program from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), eliminated studies designed to prevent new HIV infections among Black and Latino gay men, requested a $1.5 billion reduction in a domestic HIV care and prevention program funding, and halted the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a 22-year-old program credited with saving 26 million lives worldwide.
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“Since taking office, the Trump Administration has systematically attacked HIV-related funding and blocked critical HIV-related services and care for those who need it most. These disruptions would threaten Americans most at risk of contracting HIV, and many people living with HIV will get sicker or infect others without programs they rely on for treatment,” the letter states, adding that disruptions to the PEPFAR may result in over 11 million additional HIV infections and 3 million additional AIDS-related deaths across sub-Saharan Africa by 2030.
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“Cuts to federal HIV prevention funding could lead to more than 143,000 additional HIV cases in the United States within five years and about 127,000 additional deaths from HIV and AIDS-related causes,” the letter continues. “We are concerned that your motivations for disrupting HIV funding and delaying preventative services and research are grounded not in sound science.”
The letter notes that Kennedy has been “spreading serious misinformation about HIV transmission and prevention over the course of decades.” Kennedy is an AIDS denialist. In his 2021 book blasting former public health official Anthony Fauci, Kennedy sneered at the “theology that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS,” contradicting a basic understanding of the disease dating back to the 1980s.
Kennedy has also claimed that HIV is caused by “lifestyle exposures,” including poppers, “a popular [inhalant] drug among promiscuous gays,” telling right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan just last year that “compulsive homosexual behavior” was causing the HIV epidemic. Many health experts say the epidemic is worsened by a lack of sexual health education and access to HIV prevention measures and treatments.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi have demanded that Kennedy provide all documents and communications connected to the ending of $258 million in federal funding for an HIV vaccine, the elimination of the CDC’s HIV prevention division (including a list of all eliminated programs and positions), and a full list of all defunded HIV research, treatment, and prevention programs, including the reasoning for each program’s defunding.
The letter also notes that Garcia is a ranking member on the House Oversight Committee and Krishnamoorthi is a ranking member on the committee’s Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services.
“These disruptions … threaten Americans most at risk of contracting HIV, and many people living with HIV will get sicker or infect others without programs they rely on for treatment,” the letter states.
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