The Conversation: HIV/AIDS funding is an investment worth protecting
Allison Webel, assistant professor of nursing at Case Western Reserve University

“…On June 5, it will [have been] 36 years since HIV was first reported, and the return on investment in this epidemic has been high. HIV is now a chronic, rather than fatal, disease throughout the world. New infections are dropping, and we are closer than we have ever been to achieving our goal of the ‘end of AIDS.’ … [T]here is … an enormous opportunity cost to cutting HIV funding: HIV treatment, care, and research are expensive, but what happens if our nation stops making a robust investment to stop the spread of this epidemic? Without effective HIV prevention efforts, including PrEP and others, the HIV epidemic will worsen, potentially erasing much of the progress we have made to stop new infections and care for infected individuals. … It is likely that … cuts to HIV/AIDS funding will be proposed in the future. However, when we look at why Americans made this investment in the first place, and the shared benefits we all derive from it, I hope that lawmakers continue to see that HIV/AIDS funding is an investment worth protecting — and then defend it at home and abroad” (6/4).