The Trump administration is considering eliminating the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s division focused on HIV prevention and shifting its responsibilities to another department which experts warn could cost taxpayers millions if infections resurge.
However, the plan is still in the “very preliminary stages”, according to a source, and no final call has been made yet.
NBS reports that a memo circling among HIV prevention advocates claimed the plan could be implemented within “48 hours” but the source said it was likely to “be a little longer than that”.
HIV prevention advocates warned that the drastic change could force states to bear the burden on prevention programmes and could cost taxpayers millions of dollars if the virus resurges.
There are 1.1m to 1.2m people who are highly vulnerable to acquiring HIV in the America, said Jesse Milan, president and CEO of Aids United, a non-profit group.
“It would be devastating,” Milan said. "The work is important because every new transmission results in a person having a lifetime cost related to being HIV positive."
The CDC’s division is responsible for tracking HIV infections across the US, conducting research – in some cases with outside groups – on HIV transmission, and promoting testing and prevention, like the use of the HIV prevention pill, (PrEP).
There has been significant progress against new HIV infections in the country, with rates declining most significantly among younger people aged 13 to 24. If the CDC does pull back from supporting prevention programmes, experts worry that progress could be reversed.
In 2022, there were 31 800 estimated new HIV infections in the US, show government data.
Under the administration’s potential plan to get rid of the department, the CDC’s HIV prevention work could move over to another programme at HHS, possibly under the agency’s Health Resources and Services Administration, which does its own HIV work under the Ryan White HIV/Aids Programme, the source said.
Milan was sceptical of this decision, however, noting that its work primarily deals with people with HIV, not prevention.
Officials haven’t yet figured out the logistics, the source said, including staffing and what financial resources would be devoted to it.
Another potential plan apparently under consideration – to cut as much as $700m from the CDC HIV division – also hasn’t yet been decided.
In a statement, Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said “no final decision on streamlining CDC’s HIV Prevention Division has been made”.
“HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking a careful look at all divisions to see where there is overlap that could be streamlined to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure the federal government. This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard.”
The CDC’s HIV prevention division dates back to the early 1980s, as the agency responded to the emerging Aids epidemic.
In January, federal health officials scrubbed a swath of HIV-related content from the CDC’s website as part of the Trump administration’s effort to remove all context related to gender identity.
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