CDC cuts to HIV programs a big blow against Atlanta and Georgia

The workers of the CDC based in Atlanta received termination on Monday evening and on Tuesday morning. The cuts to the staff deactivate effective branches of the CDC. According to active and retired CDC employees, who were familiar with the cuts, departments that work on stopping new hepatitis and HIV infections.

Dr. John Brooks, former Chief Medical Officer of the CDC department for HIV/AIDS prevention, said that the economic effects of the cuts against Atlanta and the state would be more general because several hundred people work in the HIV prevention department.

The cuts will be counterproductive, he added, as the shots on Tuesday remove a whole layer of researchers whose work the understanding of the value and the effectiveness of existing programs – or in other words, whether taxpayers get the bang for their dollars.

“You have a large number of Georgia citizens who are now unemployed,” said Brooks. “Your work cannot be replaced. We will not know which programs work or what needs to be changed. This means that we will lose the ability to know whether the remaining money within the budget is well spent.”

The employees in five out of 11 CDC HIV prevention departments received a reduction in strength notifications and from Tuesday morning by the two locations of the CDC in Atlanta were blocked.

The job cuts took place in the following departments:

Credit: AJC

Credit: AJC

In addition to the staff cuts, Brooks said that the public health program was also closed.

If this scholarship program is actually cut, Georgia would lose critical HIV prevention workers. The Georgia Department of Public Health has an employee of the CDC -Public Health Associate program that works to reduce new HIV infections in Georgia, according to the department. Cobb, Gwinnett, Macon and DEKALB also have public health employees who work on prevention and surveillance activities.

The Department of Public Health did not immediately answer a request for comments and previously created a comment to the CDC.

Zeigler, the consultant for public health, says that cuts of the CDC prevention budget in Georgia can be felt.

“In Northwest Georgies we have high rates of opioid drug use,” she said. “It is easier to transfer HIV to these environments. If people are pregnant, they can give birth to children with HIV. This is one of the many reasons why we need prevention efforts.”

HIV prevention medications cost 30 US dollars per month without insurance or are free of insurance. The medication are safe and effective. But people have to learn how to access them and this key component of the work of the CDC has been enlarged, she said.

If everyone who needed preparation medications could access them, activists say that new HIV infections in Atlanta would fall by over 90%, which would possibly save Georgia’s taxpayers, the AJC reported.

In Georgia, 2,575 people with HIV were diagnosed in 2022, and 60,902 Georgians live according to the Ministry of Public Health with HIV. Throughout the Bundes, around 1.2 million Americans live with HIV and 31,800 the virus acquired in 2022, according to the researchers of the health policy of KFF.