On Wednesday, the remaining sixteen members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) were fired by the White House, according to Huffington Post.
Kay Hayes, the council’s executive director, confirmed this to Huffington Post on Friday, stating that “current members of Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) received a letter informing them that the Administration was terminating their appointments.” The Trump administration has yet to offer any explanation for these sudden terminations.
According to HIV.gov, PACHA exists to “to provide, on an ongoing basis, recommendations on how to effectively implement the Updated National HIV/AIDS Strategy, as well as monitor the Strategy’s implementation.” Members are not paid, and, as Scott Schoettes, a lawyer for the LGBT rights organization Lambda Legal, told Washington Post, they include “doctors, members of industry, members of the community and, very importantly, people living with HIV. Without [PACHA], you lose the community voice in policymaking.”
You’ll recall that Trump’s 2018 budget sought to cut $150 million from HIV/AIDS programs at the Centers of Disease Control and more elsewhere.
Now he fired the HIV/AIDS Council without warning or explanation via FedEx’d letter (of course). https://t.co/kbboP5GV2Q
— Lily Herman (@lkherman) December 29, 2017
On a certain level, the termination of the members of PACHA does not come as much of a surprise. As Hayes explained, “Changing the makeup of federal advisory committee members is a common occurrence during administration changes. The Obama Administration dismissed the George W. Bush Administration appointees to PACHA in order to bring in new voices.”
Gabriel Maldonado, CEO of the LGBT organization Truevolution, was fired with time still remaining on his appointment. He told the Washington Blade, “Like any administration, they want their own people there. Many of us were Obama appointees. I was an Obama appointee and my term was continuing until 2018.”
On December 1st, the federal Department of Health and Human Services posted an announcement seeking “nominations of qualified individuals to be considered for appointment as members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA).”
However, some confusion arises when people seek to understand why Trump is appointing an entirely new PACHA a full year into his administration. As Maldonado states, “I think where the discrepancy comes in is why a year later, No. 1? Two, many of us, our terms were over earlier this year and we were sworn back in, and three were stayed on nearly four months after an executive order was signed continuing the council.” Trump signed this executive order in September, which is why the sudden termination of all members seems odd.
Notably, back in June, six members of the council resigned. One of the members, Scott Schoettes, explained why in an op-ed for Newsweek entitled “Trump Doesn’t Care About HIV. We’re Outta Here.”
In it, he stated, “The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and—most concerning—pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.” It specifically noted that Trump has yet to appoint a director to the Office of National AIDS Policy.