Rep. Garcia of Long Beach asks RFK Jr. to explain targeting of HIV/AIDS funding for cuts
In a letter to Kennedy dated Thursday, Garcia asserted that the cabinet secretary has a history of peddling misinformation about the virus and disease, and that the planned cuts — which he called 'alarming and unprecedented' — would cost lives.
'We are concerned that your motivations for disrupting HIV funding and delaying preventative services and research are grounded not in sound science, but in misinformation and disinformation you have spread previously about HIV and AIDS, including your repeated claim that HIV does not cause AIDS,' wrote Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Health and Human Services officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday morning. Kennedy couldn't immediately be reached.
Both President Trump and Kennedy have previously defended the sweeping cuts to HHS programs and staff under Kennedy's leadership. Agency spokespeople have said they would allow for a greater focus on Kennedy's priorities of 'ending America's epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins.'
Kennedy has said HHS under his watch 'will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.'
Garcia's letter — which he co-wrote with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the Health Care and Financial Services subcommittee — requested that HHS produce a list of all HIV/AIDS-related funding it has cut and an explanation for how those funds were identified for elimination, as well as other documentation and communications around several of the largest cuts.
The letter is the latest attempt by Democrats, in coordination with health experts and LGBTQ+ organizations, to challenge what they see as an inexplicable yet coordinated effort by the Trump administration to dismantle public health initiatives aimed at controlling and ultimately ending one of the most devastating and deadly epidemics in human history.
It comes the same day that Senate Republicans agreed to a Trump administration request to claw back billions of dollars in funding for public media and foreign aid, but declined an earlier White House request to include in those cuts about $400 million in HIV/AIDS funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which is credited with saving millions of lives in some of the poorest nations around the world.
The House had previously voted for an earlier version of the measure that did cut the funding for PEPFAR, which was started by President George W. Bush in 2003. However, Senators pushed for the restoration of the funding before agreeing to sign the broader rescission package.
The House must now approve the Senate version of the measure by Friday for it to take effect.
In an interview with The Times, Garcia said he has long viewed Kennedy as a dangerous 'conspiracy theorist' who has 'peddled in all sorts of lies' about HIV, vaccines and other medical science. Now that Kennedy is HHS secretary, he said, the American people deserve to know whether national and international health decisions are being driven by his baseless personal beliefs.
'Folks need to understand what he's trying to do, and I think that he has to be responsible and be held accountable for his actions,' Garcia said.
In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorthi noted that recent scientific advancements — including the creation of new preventative drugs — are making the eradication of HIV more attainable than ever. And yet Kennedy and the Trump administration are pushing the nation and the world in the opposite direction, they said.
'Since taking office, the Trump Administration has systematically attacked HIV-related funding and blocked critical HIV-related services and care for those who need it most,' Garcia and Krishnamoorthi wrote. 'These disruptions would threaten Americans most at risk of contracting HIV, and many people living with HIV will get sicker or infect others without programs they rely on for treatment.'
The letter outlines a number of examples of such cuts, including:
Many in the medical and foreign aid community expressed grave concerns about Kennedy being appointed as HHS secretary, in part because of his past remarks about HIV/AIDS. Kennedy told a reporter for New York Magazine as recently as June 2023 that there 'are much better candidates than H.I.V. for what causes AIDS.'
In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorthi called out a specific theory shared by Kennedy that the recreational drug known as 'poppers' may cause AIDS, rather than the HIV virus, writing, 'We are deeply concerned that the Trump Administration's HIV-related funding cuts are indiscriminate, rooted in a political agenda, and not at all in the interest of public health.'
Kennedy's skepticism about the link between HIV and AIDS conflicts with well established science that has long been accepted by the medical establishment, and by the federal government. Studies around the world have proven the link, and found that HIV is the only common factor in AIDS cases.
In August 2023, about a week before Kennedy threw his support behind Trump, his presidential campaign addressed the controversy surrounding his 'poppers' comment, stating that Kennedy did not believe poppers were 'the sole cause' of AIDS, but contended they were 'a significant factor in the disease progression' of early patients in the 1980s.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi also noted a successful effort by local officials and advocates in Los Angeles County to get about $20 million in HIV/AIDS funding restored last month, after it and similar funding nationwide was frozen by the Trump administration.
The restoration of those funds followed another letter sent to Kennedy by Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) and other House members, who cited estimates from the Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR, that the nationwide cuts could lead to 127,000 additional deaths from AIDS-related causes within five years.
Garcia and Krishnamoorthi cited the same statistics in their letter.
In his interview with The Times, Garcia, who is gay, also said the LGBTQ+ community 'is rightly outraged' at Kennedy's actions to date and deserves to know if Kennedy 'is using his own conspiracy theories and his own warped view of what the facts are' to dismantle public health infrastructure around HIV and AIDS that they fought for decades to build.
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