The CDC’s war on gay male sexuality took another turn on June 13 when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Stop AIDS, a San Francisco organization, to stop certain HIV prevention activities because they are illegally ‘designed to promote or encourage, directly, homosexual or heterosexual activity.’
The organization had undergone a long ‘audit’ and in February CDC Director Julie Gerberding appeared to have given it a passing grade when she concluded, ‘the design and delivery of Stop AIDS prevention activities was based on current and accepted behavioral science theories in the area of health promotion.’
But Gerberding reversed that position in a letter to Stop AIDS on Friday the Thirteenth, and another to Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., a social conservative zealot who has been a leader in antigay activity. She said she was ‘committed to ensuring that CDC funds are not used in this manner,’ of promoting sex, and will send a letter to that effect to all CDC-funded grantees.
She also suggested that local community standards and review, which have been key to addressing an epidemic that differs from city to city, may no be longer be sufficient. There was in implicit threat in her letter that national standards will be imposed. The reaction from AIDS advocates was vociferous and negative.
‘Obviously the CDC is making a political decision here not to fund Stop AIDS programs that are effective but might be offensive to some taxpayers,’ said Dr. Mitch Katz, director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. ‘In San Francisco, we believe the best way to reach men who have sex with men is through workshops that are very explicit and use evocative titles and subjects that engage them.’
Katz compared the CDC decision with the federal failure to fund needle-exchange programs that have demonstrated success in reducing transmission of HIV. He vowed to continue both activities with local money.
‘The CDC is issuing warnings and threatening corrective actions under what appears to be pressure from a member of Congress and higher-up political officials in the administration,’ Terje Anderson, executive director of the National Association of People With AIDS (NAPWA), wrote in a letter to Gerberding.
‘While the obsession with STOP AIDS programs that some have can probably best be characterized as prurient, the chilling impact it has on community-based prevention efforts across the country is frightening and unacceptable.’
‘The message you send not just to STOP AIDS Project, but to thousands of grassroots prevention groups across the country, is that a group of right-wing jihadists with political power will be looking over their shoulders as they attempt to meet the prevention needs of their communities.’
Anderson continued, ‘In the end, it will have a profound and damaging impact on efforts to stop new infections.’
AIDS Action’s Executive Director Marsha Martin wrote to Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services urging him to ‘get real about HIV transmission for sexually active adults.’ She cited what European countries have done to reduce infections and pointed to the CDC goal of reducing new infections by 50% over the next five years.
Martin defended community review of the Stop AIDS programs and she invited Thompson to have direct conversations on preventing HIV transmission among adults who have and will continue to have sex.