President Biden Ramps Up Funding to beat HIV Epidemic

WASHINGTON D.C. — (04-12-21) — President Biden announced he will be ramping up spending on HIV/AIDS research in his budget request to Congress. The Biden/Harris administration announced that they want to continue the PrEP-centric initiative, increase funding on research and target the prices of medications that range between $2,000 to $4,000 a month for one bottle of HIV/AIDS medication.

In the preliminary budget request for fiscal year 2022, Biden seeks an increase of $267 million for Ending the HIV Epidemic and increasing the current $400 million that Congress has appropriated for the program since 2019.

Originally launched by the Trump administration, the PrEP-centric initiative set a goal of a 90 percent decrease in new incidents of HIV infections nationwide by 2030.

President Biden campaigned on beating that goal by five years with a new goal of ending the HIV epidemic in the USA by 2025.

Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, hailed in a statement and said…“While it falls short of what the community has requested, if this funding is realized it will continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in the U.S. Efforts to end HIV will help eradicate an infectious disease that we have been battling for the last 40 years and help correct racial and health inequities in our nation,” said Schmid.

In being fair and balanced, the Trump administration had sought to increase funding to beat HIV/AIDS in his final year in office. Trump’s budget called for an increase of $412 million for the second year of the PrEP-centric initiative, for a total of $716 million, while the Democratic majority Congress settled on an increase of approximately $137 million.

Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

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