The House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies recently approved a spending bill that would cut around $419 million from federal AIDS programs.
GOP house members have been attempting to curtail AIDS program funding in recent years, but have been rejected in their efforts, according to LGBTQ Nation, If they are approved the cuts would slash $214 million off the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s HIV prevention programs, around $190 million off the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and $15 million off the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Minority HIV/AIDS Program. In addition to the budget cuts for AIDS programs, the bill also included cuts in education and health. Some provisions or “policy riders” associated with the bill will strip women of protections for birth control and abortion access.
AIDS activists have commented on the devastating impacts this will have on the fight to decrease HIV by 2030. Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute said in a press release following the proposed cuts, “Instead of providing new investments in ending HIV by increasing funding for testing, prevention program, such as PrEP, and life-saving care and treatment, House Republicans are again choosing to go through a worthless exercise of cutting programs that the American people depend on and will never pass.”
The House Appropriations Committee is set to consider the budget cuts in July, and many AIDS advocacy groups are hopeful that the committee will refuse approval of the AIDS budget cuts as they did in 2023, according to The Washington Blade.
The Blade also reports these budget cuts, if approved, would curtail the federal government’s “Ending the HIV Epidemic” initiative, which calls for reducing the number of new HIV infections in the country by 75% by 2025, and 90% by 2030.
