March 21, 2025
The O’Neill Institute issued the following statement from co-faculty directors, Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin and Professor Lawrence O. Gostin, with insights from Jeffrey S. Crowley, director of the Center for HIV and Infectious Disease Policy, in response to plans to eliminate CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced that it is considering a plan to eliminate the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention. If the Trump administration follows through, it would have disastrous consequences for the nation’s ability to prevent new infections and control the HIV epidemic. This decision would dismantle key programs that provide HIV prevention medications such as PrEP, HIV testing, contact tracing, community education, and other essential services.
“The dismantling of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention will threaten lives in the United States. It ignores science, health, human rights, and human dignity. It is economically unsound given that the costs of prevention is far less than the economic tolls of treating disease. As such, it unleashes cruelty in government, which sadly is becoming the mark of this administration, ” said Professor Michele Bratcher Goodwin, Georgetown University O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and co-faculty director of the O’Neill Institute.
“Preventing HIV is a long-term effort that requires coordinated and sustained efforts at the federal, state, and community levels. We have made critical progress that is achieving results and this was accelerated with President Trump’s Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. Cutting essential investments in HIV prevention at the CDC, moving the funds to another federal agency, or simply sending the funds to states would result in an uncoordinated national response—likely leading to more HIV infections and higher national treatment costs,” said Jeffrey S. Crowley, director of the Center for HIV and Infectious Disease Policy and former director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy.
The CDC plays a crucial role in reducing HIV transmission through its national surveillance system, which enables public health officials to track and respond to outbreaks in real time. In 2022 alone, there were 6,700 fewer new HIV cases compared to 2016, saving the U.S. health system $2.8 billion in lifetime treatment costs. Cutting CDC’s HIV prevention funding would stall progress in lowering long-term HIV financing costs. and actively reverse the hard-won gains of recent years.
Reallocating these funds will not have the same results; it will lead to more infections and greater long-term costs. Now is the time to strengthen investments in HIV prevention, not eliminate services that have been instrumental in the fight to end the HIV epidemic.