The 22-year-old advisory body that guides the White House on HIV and AIDS policy has had the last of its members dismissed by the Trump administration.
The AIDS Advisory Council, which is based in San Francisco, usually 25-strong, lost its last few members this week, after a spate of resignations in the summer. The body hasn’t yet been formally wound down, but it remains to be seen whether Trump’s advisers will appoint members.
The council, also known as PACHA, has advised the White House on HIV-AIDS policies since 1995.
“I would like President Trump to remember what the epidemic had done not just to the LGBT community, but the entire country,” Cecelia Chun, a transgender HIV-AIDS activist who has been living with HIV for almost 25 years, told ABC News in the city in northern California.
She was appointed by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, and despite having the option to stay on, left shortly after her term was up in August, in the wake of six earlier resignations.
“We had requested numerous times to have meetings to discuss what directions the administration wanted to take,” she said. “But most of the requests had fallen on deaf ears.”
Another six members resigned from the advisory body after they stated that President Trump “simply does not care”.
Writing in an op-ed for Newsweek, board member Scott Schoettes remarked that “Trump doesn’t care about HIV. We’re outta here.”
“We cannot ignore the many signs that the Trump Administration does not take the on-going epidemic, or the needs of people living with HIV, seriously,” wrote the campaigner, who directs HIV advocacy and community support group Lambda Legal.
Addressing the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit, he said that the anti-LGBT white supremacist group ‘would not be silenced any longer.’
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