Presidential HIV council warns proposed cuts could reverse decades of progress

Source: ABC News

Several PACHA (Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS) members released a letter, shared exclusively with ABC News, urging the White House and Congress to protect funding, saying the reductions could reverse decades of work.

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In the letter, members warn that “Although progress has been made, the United States continues to experience over 30,000 new HIV cases every year. Without continued investment, progress toward ending the HIV epidemic will stall, cases will increase again, and the health of Americans will suffer.”

They point to the bipartisan Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, launched in 2019, which helped drive a 12% drop in new infections. Fully funding the program, the council says, could save up to $100 billion in health care costs by 2030. But members say House proposals would eliminate funding for domestic and global HIV efforts, cut more than $1 billion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and remove key parts of the Ryan White Program, which supports people living with HIV.

In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “PACHA is a largely symbolic body whose members are engaging in another useless PR exercise that has no connection to the Trump administration’s robust work to tackle HIV and AIDS.”

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presidential-hiv-council-warns-proposed-cuts-reverse-decades/story?id=127898241