The Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the nation’s largest HIV charity, is criticizing the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill because it holds funding flat for HIV prevention efforts through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The organization contends such a flat funding scale when taken into account with inflation is in fact a reduction in HIV prevention funding.  

The bill was submitted by President Barack Obama, and is waiting to be taken up in the U.S. House.

From a report published Wednesday in Edge, a Boston, Mass. newspaper:

“It is disappointing for Congress to flat fund HIV prevention efforts at this time,” said GHMC CEO Marjorie J. Hill. “Recent CDC reports indicate that the domestic epidemic is worse than previously estimated. Racial minorities and gay men, especially gay men of color, are disproportionately becoming HIV-positive.”

Stats from the CDC back up Hill’s claim.

Men who have sex with men still make up a hugely disproportionate percentage of new AIDS cases, according to the CDC’s own data — 57% of new HIV diagnoses in 2006. This translates to gay (and bisexual) men being 20 to 30 times more likely to become infected with HIV.

The other big at-risk group is women of color. According to the CDC, in 2006, 15,000 women were infected, with black and Latina women comprising 75 percent of those. Overall, HIV infections increased 9 percent from 2006 to 2007.

This comes as HIV/AIDS researcher William Hasteline published a commentary in The Atlantic calling for the implementation of more wide spread, universal testing for HIV, as well as more access to antiretroviral medications. The drugs have been effective in preventing the widespread and wholesale destruction of the immune system which caused so many to die in the early years of the pandemic.

And why is the researcher who has been near or on the front line of the battle against HIV since it made its appearance in the U.S. making this call?

In the near term, our hope for preventing new infections arises from recent observations regarding the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment in limiting transmission: It has been found that anti-HIV/AIDS drugs reduce the spread of the virus in several circumstances. About one third of children born to infected mothers become infected with HIV. In some instances, this transmission occurs before birth, in other instances, during birth trauma. Still others are infected through breast feeding. But evidence suggests that treating the mother with anti-HIV/AIDS drugs can dramatically reduce all three types of transmission.

Preliminary studies by Max Essex, working with a team at Harvard and in Botswana, seem to show that infection of newborns falls to undetectable rates if mothers are treated with combination therapy for the six months before and after birth, providing that the child is weaned at six months. If transmission by such intimate contact as mother to child can be reduced to near zero, it seems likely that other forms of transmission can also be reduced. Several additional studies document the effectiveness of treatment in substantially reducing sexual transmission of the virus in both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Effective treatment may even reduce infections that occur via blood directly, either by transfusion or by sharing blood-contaminated needles.

Early detection should lead to early intervention with medicines which reduce or eliminate the potentiality of transmission of the virus. That should sound like a no-brainer to anyone with common sense, but as reporters from our sister site Colorado Independent reported yesterday, common sense appears to fly out the door when it comes to HIV testing. Check out Ernest Luning’s stunning story about the state senator who thinks mandatory prenatal HIV testing rewards promiscuity (seriously, you can’t make this stuff) and Wendy Norris’ follow up piece where the same state senator said he hoped the babies of HIV positive women got AIDS– so the mother would feel guilty.

I wrote about the issue of antiretrovirals as a prevention on World AIDS Day.

While the Obama administration has put in the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations bill a request for $1.4 million to develop a national HIV/AIDS strategy (something Hill from GMHC applauded, incidently), the failure of his administration to seek increased prevention funding raises concerns from some that his campaign promises on the issue might ring hollow.