HIV Services for At-Risk Communities Are on the Chopping Block
The Los Angeles LGBT Center issued a scathing rebuke this week following a notice from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health terminating its HIV and STI prevention contracts with community-based organizations, including an annualized $3.8 million allocation to the Center.
The statement says:
“We are sounding the alarm: Los Angeles County’s decision to eliminate HIV prevention services now is a direct threat to public health. It will fuel a surge in new HIV transmissions, deepen existing health disparities, and saddle the County with far greater long-term costs. We demand that the Department of Public Health and the Board of Supervisors immediately reverse these reckless terminations and honor their contractual funding commitments.
The County’s decision to terminate all HIV prevention and STI contracts puts lives at risk and threatens to undo decades of hard-won progress in the fight against the HIV epidemic. At a time when local leadership should be standing up to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle public health infrastructure, the County is instead choosing to act prematurely, defunding life-saving services for countless Angelenos who rely on them.
County leadership has yet to provide a clear justification for this reckless decision, and the community deserves full transparency and accountability. While there have been modest reductions in CDC funding, the wholesale elimination of HIV prevention contracts raises serious questions. No other major jurisdiction facing similar federal threats has taken such an extreme and damaging step. What is happening in Los Angeles County demands further investigation, and the outcry from the community is wholly justified.
Failure to reinstate funding will result in an immediate and harmful crisis for communities most impacted by public health disparities, especially LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities. Services like HIV testing, STD screening, PrEP navigation, and community education will likely cease, and the County will undoubtedly experience a resurgence in new HIV cases. This decision will trigger a public health crisis and drive up long-term costs for the County, as investing in HIV prevention is far more cost-effective than the lifelong expense of treating someone living with HIV/AIDS.
Adding further insult to injury, this abrupt decision puts hundreds of dedicated public health workers at risk of losing their jobs. These are trusted frontline staff—many from the very communities most impacted by HIV—who have spent their careers building relationships, saving lives, and advancing health equity. Now, because of unclear reasoning, they face unemployment, and the communities they serve risk being abandoned.
If the County has truly lost federal funding at a level that warrants terminating all HIV prevention contracts, its leadership should be working overtime with the State, elected officials, and community partners to secure emergency support and fill the gap. Instead, last week’s actions revealed a troubling lack of commitment to HIV prevention—and to the very communities most at risk for the virus.
Rest assured—the Los Angeles LGBT Center community and its partners will not stay silent. We will draw on the full force of our movement’s legacy of resistance, of acting up and fighting back against injustice. This shameful decision will not go unanswered. Lives are on the line, and we refuse to let County leaders turn their backs on the people they serve. Silence will not—must not—equal death.”
