In This Issue

Today, President Trump is releasing his first major budget proposal. All indications suggest that this budget will signal a decision by the administration to abandon efforts to end the AIDS epidemic in the U.S.

The budget includes massive cuts to Medicaid and gives new powers to the states to limit a range of benefits. According to the Congressional Budget Office the proposal could cut off Medicaid benefits to 10 million people over the next decade. In addition, the budget cuts nearly $60 million from Ryan White programs and 16 percent from the Centers for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STDs, and Tuberculosis Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and $21 million from HOPWA. You combine this with the recently passed American Health Care Act (AHCA/Trumpcare) and you see a frightening trend to eviscerate efforts to end the AIDS epidemic.

If you cannibalize prevention efforts by cutting CDC, and you undermine treatment efforts by cutting Medicaid, and you take away health-care coverage for poor people, older people, and people with pre-existing conditions by removing protections to those populations in the new AHCA, any hope of ending the AIDS epidemic is over. And let's face it, no community will be harmed more by these cuts and policy changes than Black America. We have to become engaged in this process immediately! If we are not doing something every day, we are NOT doing enough! We have to be communicating with the administration, with the Congress, with our governors, with our state legislators, with civil rights organizations to make them understand what the stakes are for people living with HIV and at risk for infection. We need to be organizing, registering and being visible.

This week the Black AIDS Institute—in partnership with activists, organizations and health departments across the country—is launching "30 Days of HIV" (watch for the hashtag #30DaysofHIV), a campaign to highlight activities addressing HIV and AIDS in Black communities leading up to National HIV Testing Day (NHTD). The campaign will include a calendar of events happening in Black communities all over the country, an Instagram campaign to spotlight the lives of Black gay, bisexual and trans men, and a daily call to action.

One of the reasons why we are vulnerable is that too many people believe the AIDS epidemic is over and too few people are aware of the tools that can drastically reduce the transmission of HIV and risk of infection. Even though it is not in the news to the extent it was a few years ago, HIV/AIDS is an ongoing and, among some sectors, tragically growing crisis in Black communities. Our house is still on fire and we seem to have gotten accustomed to the heat. "30 Days of HIV" is designed to shine a spotlight not just on the problem, but more importantly on who we are and what we can do, if we focus on this problem.

In this issue, we announce the details of the "30 Days of HIV" campaign, including how you can participate in the calendar and Instagram campaign. I also report on the tour Leisha McKinley Beach and I are taking of health departments in southern states. This week we highlight seven lessons about PrEP we learned during visits to four Florida health departments.

Our friends at AIDS.gov offer high quality social-media labs and technical assistance. If your organization hasn't taken advantage of this service, you should. Read on to learn how. New research from the FDA shows not only that people tolerate the new drugs that cure hepatitis well, but that they are helping people live longer, healthier lives. Finally, in interviews on health care Time magazine and The Economist conducted with him, President Trump revealed just how little he still understands about health insurance—though he seems to know how to sabotage the health insurance marketplace set up under the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

Yours in the struggle,

Phill