On Tuesday, April 1, following the massive amount of employee layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Trump administration also saw fit to gut several programs and grants that support health research, which directly impacts the LGBTQ+ community.
According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official that reached out to NBC news while remaining anonymous for fear or reprisals, one of the programs cut surveyed HIV transmissions among gay men. Coming from a similar source that also wished to remain anonymous, a lab that conducted specialized testing and assessing of drug resistance among bacterial STIs, including Gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis, was also eliminated as a part of the cuts.
These two examples are a small look at many of the programs slashed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), now helmed by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya who took over the director’s role. In an emailed statement issued on Wednesday, April 2, Bhattacharya said that the NIH remains “committed to supporting research aimed at improving the health and well-being of every American” but noted that it would be shifting its priorities “away from politicized DEI and gender ideology studies” in accordance with the president’s executive orders.
On the same day, the American Public Health Association and other organizations sued the NIH in federal court over the canceled grants, including those backing HIV-prevention research. Asserted through the evidence collected, the lawsuit claims that the cancellation letters originally were developed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency before being used by HHS and NIH. “For example, metadata associated with at least one such notice shows it was authored by ‘JoshuaAHanley.’ An attorney named Joshua A. Hanley, a 2021 law school graduate, works at DOGE,” the suit states.
Taken from a batch of the grant cancellation letters obtained by NBC News, each in part reads: “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.”
Dr. Chris Beyrer, the director of the Duke Global Health Institute, said that the past few weeks have reminded him of the horrors he witnessed in the 1980s. “When I started my career in HIV research, there were really no dedicated funds” for LGBTQ-specific research, he said. As of recent, he added, he had been haunted by that period in his career, four decades ago, when he cared for babies dying of AIDS. This was a time when gay men perished of the disease by the tens of thousands while then-President Ronald Reagan refused to discuss the topic during his time in office.
However, in the wake of the dismantling of the vast slews of programs, Dr. Kenneth Mayer, medical director of Fenway Health, a leading LGBTQ-focused health center in Boston, expressed some hope as to the pushback and rebuilding that will need to occur after all is said and done. “One thing that I tell students is LGBT people have been fighting for more than 100 years for our rights,” he said. “So, I think this just reminds us that we need to continue doing that.”