Policy Updates: Hill Happenings and Administration Activities
Hill Happenings
FY2025 Appropriations
Lawmakers return to Capitol Hill from August recess on September 6 and must advance a Fiscal Year 2025 (FY2025) appropriations package by the September 30 deadline. The Democrat majority Senate and Republican majority House of Representatives advanced party-line proposals in July, but no overarching bipartisan budget framework emerged, threatening the possibility of a government shutdown at the start of FY2025 on October 1. With the November general election looming ahead, Congress may opt to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to temporarily extend FY2024 funding levels through autumn to buy more time to negotiate on the spending proposals and advance a bipartisan spending package by the start of the new Congressional session in January.
Although both chambers marked up and advanced the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (LHHS) Subcommittee bills out of their respective Appropriations Committees in July, only the Senate passed the LHHS bill via a full floor vote on August 1. The Senate’s LHHS bill avoids deep spending cuts proposed by the House of Representatives, maintaining investments in core health programs, but most infectious disease programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STIs, and TB Prevention were flat-funded, including the HIV and viral hepatitis prevention programs and the infectious disease and opioids program. The Senate’s overall LHHS package includes a higher total than the House bill, teeing up a fall showdown on budget negotiations ahead of the November election.
NASTAD will continue to monitor the congressional appropriations process and advocate for the highest possible funding for HIV, hepatitis, and drug user health programs.
Administration Activities
HRSA Announces $1.4 billion in RWHAP Funding for AIDS Drug Assistance Programs
On August 20, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced that it awarded more than $1.4 billion in Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funding for the HRSA AIDS Drug Assistance Program and related awards. This tranche of funding will help to ensure that individuals with HIV who have low incomes receive lifesaving medication, quality HIV health care and essential support services. The funding was announced during the opening plenary session of HRSA’s 2024 National Ryan White Conference on HIV Care & Treatment in Washington, DC.
US District Court Eliminates Last Categorical Restriction Against PLWH from Joining Armed Services
On August 20, a federal district court struck down the Department of Defense’s (DOD) last categorical disqualification preventing people living with HIV from joining the U.S. Armed Services. The court found that DOD’s policies prohibiting asymptomatic HIV-positive individuals with undetectable viral loads from enlisting were irrational, arbitrary, and capricious, as well as stigmatizing. The ruling came in Wilkins v. Austin, filed by Lambda Legal.
CDC Announces New Director of the Division of STD Prevention
On July 28, Dr. Bradley Stoner began his tenure as the new Director of the CDC Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP). Prior to joining CDC, Dr. Stoner was Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health Sciences and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Queen's University, Canada. As Director of DSTDP, Dr. Stoner will oversee sexually transmitted infection (STI) surveillance, control, research, guidelines, and the implementation and evaluation of CDC-supported prevention programs.
Resources
“In 2022, 22% of persons who died of drug overdose had a non–substance-related mental health disorder. The most common disorders were depressive (13%) and anxiety (9%). Approximately one quarter of decedents with a non–substance-related mental health disorder had at least one recent potential opportunity for intervention (e.g., current treatment for substance use disorders or recent emergency department visit).”
Fenway Institute Policy Brief: Mpox Update Summer 2024
“On August 14, 2024 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency due to ‘an escalating crisis of mpox concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo,’according to The New York Times…The WHO warned that the virus has the ‘potential to spread further across countries in Africa and possibly outside the
continent.’”
GU O’Neill Institute Brief: Better Integration Between HIV and Aging Systems is Critical
“While too many people with diagnosed HIV are not in care, those receiving RWHAP services have high viral suppression rates comparable to many other developed nations. The majority of PWH in the United States are over age 50, but we have not done enough to prepare to meet both the clinical and social needs associated with aging HIV to support a high quality of life.”
“Among the vaccines included in the combined 7-vaccine series, coverage among VFC-eligible children born in 2020 was approximately 90% for first doses of vaccines (≥1 dose of varicella vaccine and ≥1 dose of MMR§§§§) and for series administered earlier in life (≥3 doses of poliovirus vaccine and ≥3 doses of hepatitis B vaccine).”
Drug Policy Alliance Fact Sheets:
- The Impact of the Overdose Crisis on Native American Communities in the United States
- The Impact of the Overdose Crisis on Latinx Communities in the United States
- The Impact of the Overdose Crisis on Black Communities in the United States
HRSA HAB Webinar: An Innovative Approach for Improving STI Screening and Treatment Among Those with or Vulnerable to HIV Acquisition
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2024, 2:00-3:00 pm ET
“Join us for an exciting webinar featuring a groundbreaking intervention, Addressing STIs: Ask. Test. Treat. Repeat., designed to improve routine screening, testing, and treatment of common STIs. This initiative integrates evidence-based interventions into routine, primary HIV care without adding extensive burden to the clients and clinical team. CE credit is available for individuals who attend the live webinar. Click here to learn more about CE credits offered through the IHIP webinar series.”
Job Opportunities
Senior Policy Advisor, Bureau of Hepatitis, HIV, and STI – Queens, New York
The NYC Health Department’s Bureau of Hepatitis, HIV, and Sexually Transmitted Infections (BHHS) Policy and External Affairs Program seeks a Senior Policy Advisor to lead its health systems policy efforts and support its HIV, STI, and viral hepatitis policy advocacy more broadly. The Senior Policy Advisor will report to the Director of Policy and External Affairs and oversee BHHS’s health systems policy efforts, including monitoring, researching, and responding to Medicaid, Medicare, 340B program, Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, New York State of Health Marketplace, New York City HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA), patient assistance programs, and commercial health insurance activity relevant to New Yorkers affected by HIV, STIs, and viral hepatitis.
Communicable Disease Epidemiologist – Cheyenne, Wyoming
This position will serve as the Communicable Disease AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) Coordinator, Wyoming TB Controller, and Disease Intervention Specialist (DIS) for the Communicable Disease (CD) Treatment Program. Assist in outbreak response to ensure the safety of Wyoming residents; by interviewing cases for exposure information, updating news outlets on the progress of outbreak control, analyzing exposure data utilizing epidemiological and statistical methods.
Open Positions – New York State
The New York State Department of Health, in partnership with Health Research, Inc, has various job openings, including some within the AIDS Institute. Please visit this link to learn about their current opportunities.
News Bulletin
A New Drug Could Change The HIV Prevention Landscape, But Only With A Fair Price Tag
“In June, Gilead Sciences announced impressive early results from its PURPOSE 1 trial, which showed 100 percent efficacy of lenacapavir in preventing new HIV infections among cisgender women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Lenacapavir is being investigated as an injectable antiretroviral medication that can be taken once every six months as preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV. This is a marked shift from current PrEP options, which are only available as a once-daily pill or a bimonthly injection. Once again, the HIV community finds itself at a scientific breakthrough moment. And once again, it remains an open question as to whether it will also prove to be a breakthrough moment for equitable access.”
Key drug ‘disappointing’ against deadly mpox virus, study sponsor says
“A drug used in the last global mpox outbreak in 2022-23 has failed to improve a key symptom compared with a dummy against the more severe virus spreading rapidly in Africa, researchers have found. The antiviral, tecovirimat, did not reduce the duration of lesions among children and adults with clade I mpox in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the initial results of a placebo-controlled trial run by researchers in the DRC and the U.S.”
Overdose Prevention Centers Are Health Care: Treat Them as Such
“OPC are person-centered care. We are decades into the worst overdose crisis this country has ever seen and still, the default response to drug use is to punish people by arresting them, rather than treating it as a public health issue. To save lives and support long-term stability, it makes sense to offer people an OPC during vulnerable moments of drug use, rather than stigmatize them into isolation.”