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Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) is calling for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to explain why the Trump administration has repeatedly ordered cuts to HIV/AIDS programs both domestically and internationally.
In a letter to Kennedy on Thursday, Garcia argued that the Chief Cabinet Secretary has a history of misinformation about the virus and illness, and that planned cuts would be called “surprising and unprecedented.”
“I’m worried that the motivation to disrupt HIV funding and delay preventive services and research is something that has previously spread about HIV and AIDS, not healthy science.
Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday morning. Kennedy couldn’t get there immediately.
Presidents Trump and Kennedy have previously defended radical cuts in health and human service programs and staff under Kennedy’s leadership. An agency spokesman said it would allow Kennedy to focus more on “end the American chronic disease epidemic by focusing on safe and healthy foods, clean water and eliminating environmental toxins.”
Kennedy said the department “will do more for taxpayers at a lower cost.”
Garcia’s Letter – He co-authored with Rep. Raja Krishnamoulti (D-ILL), a ranking Democrat for the Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee – the Health Department created a list of all HIV/AIDS-related funds that it cut and explained how those funds were identified for several other documentation and communication and communication.
The letter is a mysterious yet coordinated effort by the Trump administration, working with health experts and LGBTQ+ organisations, to dismantle public health initiatives aimed at controlling and ultimately ending one of the most devastating and deadly epidemics in human history.
The same day came when Senate Republicans agreed to demand that the Trump administration reclaim billions of dollars in funding for public media and foreign aid, but rejected previous White House requests to cut approximately $400 million in HIV/AIDS funds for the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief.
The House had previously voted for an earlier version of the measure that cut Pepfer’s funds, launched by President George W. Bush in 2003. However, the senator called for a funding recovery before agreeing to sign a broader withdrawal package.
The House must approve the Senate version of the measure by Friday.
In an interview with the Times, Garcia said that for a long time, he has seen Kennedy as a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” who has “been kept to all sorts of lies” about HIV, vaccines and other medicine. Now that Kennedy is the health secretary, Americans deserve to know whether national and international health decisions are driven by his unfounded personal beliefs.
“People need to understand what he’s going to do. I think he has to take responsibility and take responsibility for his actions,” Garcia said.
In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorti noted that recent scientific advances, including the creation of new preventive drugs, have made eradication of HIV more achievable than ever. Still, they said Kennedy and the Trump administration are pushing the country and the world in opposite directions.
“Since taking office, the Trump administration has systematically attacked HIV-related funds, blocked critical HIV-related services and blocked care for those who need it most,” writes Garcia and Krishnamoulti. “These confusions will threaten Americans at the highest risk of contracting HIV. Many people who live with HIV get sick or get infected with other people without the program they rely on for treatment.”
The letter outlines many examples of such cuts, such as:
Elimination of the Centers for HIV Prevention’s HIV Prevention Division and abolishment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions of delays or delays in HIV Prevention Subsidies from its offices. Ends of a $258 million program within health labs nationwide to find vaccines to prevent new HIV infections. Contract with the virus. Targets of overseas HIV prevention initiatives, including Pepfar. The United States will be pulled back from the World Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Many of the medical and foreign aid communities have expressed serious concern about Kennedy’s appointment as Secretary of Health due to past remarks about HIV/AIDS. “There are far better candidates than HIV, which causes AIDS,” Kennedy told a New York magazine reporter in June 2023.
In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoulti called for a specific theory Kennedy shares that recreational drugs known as “poppers” could cause AIDS rather than HIV virus, saying, “I am deeply concerned that the Trump administration’s cuts in HIV-related funding are rooted in political attacks and are indiscriminate in their lack of interest in the public.
Kennedy’s skepticism about the relationship between HIV and AIDS is at odds with established science that has long been accepted by healthcare agencies and the federal government. Studies around the world have proven the link, finding that HIV is the only common factor in cases of AIDS.
In August 2023, about a week before Kennedy threw support behind Trump, his presidential election tackled a controversy over his “popper” comments, claiming that while Kennedy doesn’t believe Popper is the “only cause” of AIDS, he was a “significant factor in disease progression” in early patients in the 1980s.
Garcia and Krishnamoulti also noted that local Los Angeles County officials and supporters had successful efforts to secure about $20 million in HIV/AIDS funding last month, and similar funds across the country were restored after the Trump administration froze.
The restoration of these funds followed another letter sent to Kennedy by Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) and other House members.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi cited the same statistics in their letters.
In an interview with The Times, Garcia, who is gay, states that the LGBTQ+ community is “rightly furious” at Kennedy’s actions so far, and it is worth knowing whether Kennedy “uses his own conspiracy theory and his own distorted view of what the facts are.”
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