This is on top of a considerable peeling back of HIV-related funding cuts that had been pushed by the Trump admin and stamped by the House. Important, tactile progress against the tide

6. Now, with this release, the final HHS and Education bills contain no anti-transgender provisions: no ban on hospitals providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth, no threats to strip funding from schools that support transgender students or allow them to use the bathroom.

Good news, for once, in a long fight to preserve #HIVfunding! The FY2026 Conference bill - aka the final negotiated bill that passed both chambers and was signed into law - preserves the majority of HIV prevention & treatment funding, ignoring the cuts that the President and the House proposed.

Florida is making its ADAP eligibility much stricter, which will make many people scramble for other options. That this appears to be happening with no warning is cruel, tho it’s ostensibly related to the loss of ACA credits

Take it from a long-time highly regarded HIV doc who had a front-line seat as antiretroviral treatment evolved.

For readers who are about to lose care, I have been told that the Trans Youth Emergency Project is helping the families of trans youth contingency plan to access that care. www.transyouthemergencyproject.org

They will not succeed — both because they are wrong and because, ultimately, such people always fail. The only question is how many people will be harmed in the interim and what we, as people who care, will do to support and protect those being targeted. (This, to be clear, is not a new question.)

This is when every single hospital in the country needs to say no. Shut down all the hospitals and see what happens.

Jeanne Marrazzo, the former head of the U.S. NIAID, has sued the federal government, which fired her on 26 September. Her suit claims it did so in retaliation for a whistleblower complaint she filed against the Trump administration. https://scim.ag/48HUI5X

RFK Jr, the current Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is fully immersed in the murderous falsehoods of AIDS denialism: RFK Jr, June 2023: "There are much better candidates than HIV for what causes AIDS." nymag.com/intelligence...

#FDA has approved a new 1st-in-class oral antibiotic for the treatment of #gonorrhea, which has been making its way through the armamentarium of available antibiotics. Nuzolvence was brought to market through a private-public partnership involving @gardp.bsky.social. www.statnews.com/2025/12/12/f...

This is cool.

Oh for crap's sake www.courthousenews.com/military-ask...

This is a useful breakdown! And a compelling argument -- though I'm not sure I'm convinced that this can hold true for gender/sex-specific data. We know trans erasure is happening -- but do we know if every research team is handling that the same way? "Sex assigned at birth" isn't always known.

1. In a Sunday Night surprise, the trans healthcare coverage ban has been removed from the military NDAA. Congressional leaders released the negotiated bill this evening, and though the House AND Senate contained the provision, it is not in the final bill! Subscribe to support our journalism.

Commemorating #WorldAIDSday is an act of defiance against ideology driven policies that will end our progress to end the epidemic.

there’s a scene in the new documentary where Elizabeth Taylor is talking about the stigma of AIDS and how she got involved in the movement and it’s fucking everything

On #WorldAIDSDay, we got a snapshot of data from NYC, which is a bellwether for the epidemic. All progress has stalled and HIV rates have increased. This is in the midst of funding cuts, poor data gathering, and no govt leadership. The fight goes on

👀

This! @emilybass.bsky.social's headline in her blog is really good - it grabs attention and is technically true as a federal thing - but as she notes, the federal gov't didn't invent #WorldAIDSDay and the community certainly doesn't need their permission to mark it substack.com/inbox/post/1...

A regular reminder that HHS Secretary RFK Jr is an AIDS denialist who uttered this egregious falsehood about #HIV to a journalist just two years ago: "There are much better candidates than HIV for what causes AIDS" nymag.com/intelligence...

Yep, that's one word for it

Dieffenbach was 'detailed' to an NIH institute (Fogarty) that has much less authority, in a lesser role. This is a way to move him out.

Hearing news that Carl Dieffenbach, the Director of the Division of AIDS at #NIH (NIAID), has been removed from his position because he was "not aligned with HHS/OMB." Russell Vought continues to remove great scientists as part of the Project 2025 mission to politicize and destroy NIH. 🧪 1/

Since last year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, at least 55 trans folk have been lost to violence in the U.S., according to the Trans Murder Monitoring Project. Let remembrance turn to resolve, to make a world where every life is respected and cherished. tdor.translivesmatter.info

It’s such a bummer. (I know that’s a huge understatement; it’s just the word in my head right now.) It is so surreal, as a health journalist, to acknowledge that the CDC is no longer a reliable primary source of information for a story or a “what you need to know” article unless the page is pre-2025

This sounds reasonable but is 100% wrong. Whether you or agree or disagree with a study is completely immaterial. What matters is whether the study was conducted properly and generates valid results. And it's impolitic to say but it's true: you have to have some level of expertise to judge that.

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See the film and my update on the ongoing, pointless, man-made loss of life here: bsky.app/profile/agaw...

I helped make a film, out this week, called “Rovina’s Choice,” about the deaths this man without conscience or accountability has caused — already 600,000, ⅔ of them children.

HIVMA and fellow members of the Emergency HIV Clinical Response Task Force warn that proposed federal funding cuts could severely disrupt HIV prevention, care, and treatment nationwide. Learn more in the new data brief: https://bit.ly/3LnWEHt

Putting on my public health hat. While there are some notable exceptions, note that this map of NYC roughly tracks patterns for poverty, HIV, diabetes, etc. It also represents the power of the people.

#BHIVA issues update to #HIV guidelines for adults. We explain the main changes here: i-base.info/htb/52587 #HIVsky #HIVguidelines #HIVtreatment #HIVpositive #PLWH #HIVscience #Undetectable #UequalsU #InjectableART #LongActingART #abacavir #cabotegravir @bhiva.bsky.social @bashhuk.bsky.social

"We are also watching a tide of rapidly diversifying HIV leadership. And it’s coming at a time when the stakes have never been higher—and the political situation may have never been more challenging—for the communities that this leadership represents." —Ace Robinson www.thebody.com/hiv/hiv-new-...

🗓️ June 5, 1981: five cases of Pneumocystis Pneumonia, one report, a global awakening. 💙 The MMWR gave voice to what became the HIV/AIDS epidemic—and countless public-health moments since. 🕯️ Honoring the science and reporting that save lives. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview... #MMWR #CDCSavesLives

Hard to beat Aidsmap if you want to stay abreast of EACS (or Glasgow, in even-numbered years) highlights! These meetings always contain at least a handful of valuable new data drops relevant to HIV clinical care, treatment, and prevention.

#Breaking: Medicare payments to doctors paused as government shutdown drags on www.statnews.com/2025/10/15/c...

From @jeremyfaust.bsky.social: “I was also told that RIF’d editors of the CDC’s flagship scientific journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report have all been recalled, as well as leaders and staffers in several other centers and divisions.” open.substack.com/pub/insideme...

Infectious diseases hit red states. Overdoses too. And cancer. And traffic injuries. And congenital diseases. In some of these cases, red states are affected more heavily bc they lack Medicaid expansion and/or protective laws. Destroying the CDC serves no one. No one.

>> which is the lesson! Fighting back against Vought is worth it & is essential. In this case, Vought is still trying to choke out apportionment of PEPFAR funds. We won't stop until it those life saving funds are released & until Vought's reign is ended /END www.politico.com/live-updates...

Impressive, thorough walkthrough from @kff.org here! It's a little more geared toward folks who are immersed in policy/access than to people living with HIV who rely on ACA Marketplace plans or Ryan White care or the like, but a valuable resource regardless during an uncertain moment for care access

"'It’s not surprising, but it’s still incredibly disappointing,' says [ousted NIAID Director Jeanne] Marrazzo, who found her letter in a torn UPS Express package yesterday after returning from a week at the beach." www.science.org/content/arti...

OMB appears to be asking for feedback on whether the CDC's National #HIV Surveillance System (NHSS) should continue or is too much bother. The PDF contains information on how to respond. Thanks to Rachel Klein at @aidsadvocacy.bsky.social for the alert.

If you’re looking for a weekend HIV-focused listen (or read — we’ve got a transcript!), I can hardly think of a better one than Rageshri’s words on how to improve outcomes by giving your patients your ear. I’m still thrilled she joined me for this conversation!

STI rates coming down, but still lots of work to do. This is a combination of public health efforts, doxyPEP, regular screening and treatment, and expedited partner therapy. Congenital syphilis STILL INCREASING though and requires regular testing 3x in pregnancy where high rates of syphilis #STISky

It still requires massive budgets at country level to introduce this revolutionary drug at large scale to really turn the tide of HIV transmission. Amid funding cuts by the US and other countries, would the implementation of this HIV prevention drug become a reality? bsky.app/profile/avac...

(Gift link) Any development that improves access to top HIV drugs is a good thing, be it for prevention or treatment. But the good vibes at the top of this article are tempered by the important caveats in the second half: Slicing drug cost is just part of the equation www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/h...

New on @thebodypro.bsky.social: Hospitalizations may present one of the best opportunities to increase HIV PrEP uptake in a deeply underserved population: less than 1% of people who inject drugs in the U.S. report using PrEP. UNC's David Alain Wohl, MD, explains: www.thebodypro.com/video/hiv/hi...

ACOG and all other professional societies continue to affirm the safety of using Tylenol, also known as as acetaminophen or paracetamol, in pregnancy to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.