tag@treatmentactiongroup.org
TAG Joins Call for the Resignation of HHS Secretary RFK, Jr., as a “Danger to the Public’s Health”

– Aligns with American Public Health Association and Others in Calling for a Return to Ethics, Transparency, and Truth in U.S. Science – 

Contact: Dorrit Walsh, dorrit.walsh@treatmentactiongroup.org

April 10, 2025 – Treatment Action Group (TAG) decries the vicious and inchoate attacks on HHS since the advent of the new administration, which have escalated significantly over the past two weeks. Among targeted programs, many are related to the infectious diseases HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and hepatitis C (HCV) (see report from the Kaiser Family Foundation[1] and Google doc resource maintained by journalist Marisa Kabas[2]).

TAG’s Basic Science, Vaccines, and Cure Project Director, Richard Jefferys, said, “AIDS denialist conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is presiding over an incoherent and opaque wrecking of essential taxpayer-supported work at HHS, threatening health and lives in the United States and globally.”

We join the American Public Health Association’s Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD in calling for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to resign or be dismissed, and wholeheartedly agree with APHA that “Americans deserve better than someone who is trying to impose his unscientific and judgmental view of public health and science.”[3]

Further NIH cuts endanger critical research on tuberculosis. “The administration’s racist and discriminatory terminations of U.S. research funding to South Africa – where up to one-third of participants are enrolled in key NIH-supported clinical trials of new interventions for TB prevention and treatment – is a reprehensible attack on one of the U.S.’s most qualified research partners,” said Lindsay R. McKenna, TAG’s TB Project Co-Director. “These terminations threaten to destroy years of research designed to bring the end of TB closer.”

Details on the recent cuts are incomplete, highlighting the reprehensible dishonesty of the claimed commitment to “transparency”[4] on the part of recently confirmed NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. But they are profound, broad-ranging, and potentially deadly. To select just a few examples:

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention (NCHHSTP):

  • Director Dr. Jonathan Mermin was reassigned/placed on administrative leave.
  • Cutting of key components of the Division of HIV Prevention, Division of TB Elimination, Division of Viral Hepatitis, and Division of STD Prevention, including the only remaining team with expertise in preventing infant HIV acquisition.[5]

Food and Drug Administration

  • Office of Communications, Education, and Engagement, massive cuts to the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) and other departments including the FDA library.
  • Resignation of Dr. Peter Marks[6], former Director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER)[7]

NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

  • Loss of Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the highly qualified and committed Director of NIAID, Dr. Emily Erbelding, longstanding Director of the NIAID Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Cliff Lane, Deputy Director, Clinical Research and Special Projects (possibly others).
  • Communications offices at multiple institutes, leading to some websites already containing notices they will no longer be updated (NHGRI, NIDDK, NIAMS, NIDCD).
  • Spiteful and vindictive targeting of Dr. Christine Grady, Director of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the NIH Clinical Center (Dr. Grady is married to former NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci).

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)

  • Office of Communications, key elements of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) and several other departments.

The inclusion of multiple communications offices is evidence that the Trump regime is attempting to extend its authoritarian reach to encompass centralizing control over essential taxpayer-funded government health (and other) agencies.

The rampant cuts to the infrastructure of HHS and critical public health programs are occurring concomitantly with an escalating assault on HHS (including NIH) funding for grants that were already awarded. The latest list of terminations contains over 1,600 entries, including the entire Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) and significant construction grants to the Whitman-Walker clinic in Washington DC[8] and Meharry Medical College, a Historically Black College or University (HBCU).

Well over 100 HIV-related grants have been terminated because they have been flagged by unqualified political appointees (and possibly artificial intelligence tools) as addressing topics deemed verboten by right wing zealots (e.g. diversity, equity and inclusion, and/or sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability). Funding for HIV clinical trials networks also appears to be on hold, with new enrollments being paused indefinitely, delaying or extinguishing the possibility that these studies could yield information which could save thousands of lives[9].

As has been widely publicized, entire universities are also seeing grant monies withheld in a reneging of commitments akin to the unethical and dishonorable business practices of the current US president. The tactics are intended to not only disrupt science, but blackmail educational institutions into ideological conformity — a fascist tactic that should shock the conscience of all Americans committed to freedom of expression.

“Secretary Kennedy lied to the American people when he told his Senate confirmation hearing that he would stand up in favor of vaccines long proven to be safe and effective,” said TAG Executive Director Mark Harrington. “Director Bhattarchaya lied when he promised NIH full transparency, on his first day in office. Their heinous actions undermine the health of the American people and paralyze life-saving research conducted at and funded by NIH — the world’s leading biomedical science agency and the pinnacle of U.S. R&D. — as well as vital research conducted by academic and community-based institutions throughout the U.S.”

Many other HIV/AIDS organizations stand in solidarity with our call for a return to ethics, transparency, and truth at HHS and in the U.S. government as a whole.

CALL TO ACTION:

We call on our supporters to voice outcry at the administration against these attacks on public health and basic science by contacting your elected officials. You can visit https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member and tell your legislators to demand change. Share your concerns with loved ones and raise awareness about the importance of these programs any way that you can.

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[1] Dawson L, Kates J. What Do Federal Staffing Cuts and HHS Restructuring Mean for the Nation’s HIV Response?. Kaiser Family Foundation. 2025 April 8.

[2] Kabas M. Tracking the HHS April Fools’ Massacre. The Handbasket. 2025 April 02.

[3] APHA (Press Release). Secretary Kennedy and his policies are a danger to the public’s health. 2025 April 9.

[4] “We must maintain the highest standards of transparency in all our endeavors.” Newly confirmed National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya, email to NIH staff, April 1, 2025.

[5] Mandavilli A. All Federal Experts on H.I.V. Prevention in Children Overseas Were Dismissed. The New York Times. 2025 April 8.

[6] Marks P. Resignation Letter. 2025 March 28.

[7] AAB. Peter Marks Resigns as CBER Director. March 2025 March 31.

[8] Murphy T. U.S. HIV Researchers Reel at Widespread Cancellations to Domestic Funding. TheBody.com. 2025 April 7.

[9] Nirappil, F. Deep cuts to HIV research could halt decades of progress, scientists say. The Washington Post. 2025 April 4.

 

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