Another blow from the president ignores a continuing epidemic

Living with AIDS in this country is like living through a war that’s happening only for those people in the trenches. Every time a shell explodes you look around to discover you’ve lost more friends. But nobody else notices, it isn’t happening to them.”

AIDS activist and author Vito Russo said that in the aftermath of the Stonewall uprising that led to the international gay rights movement several decades ago. The quote still appears on the website of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, which Russo helped to found before he died of AIDS at age 44. The quote is particularly relevant now in light of Donald Trump’s shutting down the President’s Council on HIV/AIDS.

The council, comprised of physicians, industry and community members, and people living with the disease, was set up in 1995 to make national recommendations regarding the treatment of HIV/AIDS so that health officials could respond appropriately to the epidemic. Last June six members of the council resigned out of frustration with the president’s health care policies. The remaining members were dismissed with immediate effect in December in a letter from the White House.

The demise of the council, along with Trump’s wish for a disastrous American Health Care Act, adds to a crisis that could leave over a million Americans with HIV/AIDS without access to appropriate treatment, departing council members reported in despair. They also called out the president for his failure to appoint a director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, a position created by the Clinton administration.

Additionally, the president wants to cut HIV/AIDS program funding by $150 million in this year’s fiscal budget, along with cutting global projects that fight AIDS and other diseases. What does this mean for people living with HIV/AIDS, 15 percent of whom in the U.S. don’t even know yet that they are HIV positive?

Ed Sparan, operations manager of the World AIDS Museum and Educational Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., points out that nothing has really changed since the days of Ronald Reagan, who as president took seven years to just mention HIV/AIDS, despite the 40,000 deaths that occurred during those years.

Source :- sentinelsource