GLAAD CEO on Trump’s HIV Pledge: “Unfortunately, President Trump’s announcement has already been undermined by his own Administration’s record and rhetoric.”

ICYMI: “Six People Have Resigned From Trump’s HIV/AIDS Advisory Council Because He ‘Doesn’t Care’”

NEW YORK – GLAAD, the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, today responded to reports that President Trump will call for an end to HIV transmissions by 2030 during the State of the Union Address tomorrow night in Washington, D.C.

The Trump Administration’s HIV pledge follows as many as eight attacks on HIV and AIDS research or people living with HIV and AIDS, including the disbanding of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS and discharging two service members in the Air Force after they disclosed they were living with HIV.

“Unfortunately, President Trump’s announcement has already been undermined by his own Administration’s record and rhetoric, and there is no reason for LGBTQ Americans or anyone else to see this as anything more than empty rhetoric designed to distract from what’s really happening behind the scenes every day,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO at GLAAD.”

President Trump’s pledge to end HIV transmissions comes as his administration has unleashed more than 92 attacks against LGBTQ Americans in policy and rhetoric. GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project (TAP) has catalogued every anti-LGBTQ action by this administration, available at www.glaad.org/trump.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Trump Administration’s History of Harming HIV and AIDS Research or People with HIV and AIDS

• 12.19.18 – The Trump Administration discharges two service members in the Air Force after disclosing their HIV-positive status to the Department of Defense. 
• 12.09.18 – The Trump Administration quietly shuts down a HIV research facility in Montana after the administration objected to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and its scientists using fetal tissue as a part of its research to find a cure for HIV and AIDS. 
• 1.18.18 – The Department of Health and Human Services created a new department that shields healthcare workers who refuse to treat LGBTQ patients or those living with HIV by calming moral or religious objections.  
• 12.29.17 – President Trump fires the entire White House Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
• 6.27.17 – The Trump Administration failed to mention the LGBTQ community in their National HIV Testing Day statement. 
• 6.17.17 – Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned saying that President Trump “simply does not care” about combating the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• 5.23.17 – The Trump Administration reveals their budget which includes proposed slashes to programs and departments critical to the LGBTQ community, including Medicaid, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Disease Control’s HIV and AIDS programs.
• 3.28.17: Under his proposed budget for the U.S. Congress, The Trump Administration offered to cut HIV and AIDS research funding under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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