Jun 04, 2004  |  By: RYAN LEE  | COMMENTS     

Two-thirds of the $49 million the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention recently allocated to community-based organizations to fight the spread of HIV will fund programs targeting those already infected, a sea change in the way the federal health agency battles the virus.

The CDC announced the funding awards on May 21 as part of its “Advancing HIV Prevention Initiative.” That effort, first announced in April 2003, calls for tailoring prevention messages to HIV-positive people to keep them from spreading the disease.

The traditional emphasis on safe-sex messages for HIV-negative individuals created a health and information gap for those already living with the virus, said Robert Janssen, director of the CDC’s HIV prevention programs.

But some agencies that have received CDC funds in the past criticized the agency’s shift in strategy and funding, dubbed “Prevention for Positives.”

“Prevention dollars that we desperately need are being squandered by funding an ideological prevention strategy that doesn’t work,” said Jason Riggs, interim communications director for the Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco. “What we are seeing in effect is a dismantling of HIV-prevention programs for people who are negative and want to stay negative.”

S.F. AIDS group targeted
The Stop AIDS Project has been in the crosshairs of conservative lawmakers for the last three years. It was the target of various federal audits and investigations over what critics call its “obscene” prevention programs targeting gay and bisexual men.

Riggs said Stop AIDS Project received $225,000 from the CDC during the last five-year grant cycle in 1999.

“Even though in every investigation the CDC has found nothing wrong in our accounting system or programs, we feared ideology would beat out science as it has in almost every health issue across the board with this administration,” he said.

Some 142 groups will share the $49 million in grants. While the amount of funding remained about the same as in 1999, Janssen said, the number of groups dropped from 189. Of the organizations that received money last month, 67 were funded in the past by the CDC.

The CDC decreased the number of groups funded “because in consultations with members of different communities they felt the award size needed to be larger in order for their programs to be effective,” Janssen said.

A total of 530 groups applied for funding this year. The amount each organization receives will not be finalized until July 1, but will average about $345,000.

Metro Teen AIDS, which provides prevention messages to youth in Washington, D.C., has reduced its staff by three employees since officials learned they lost funding under the CDC’s new approach.

“I think that when we’re talking about adolescents, the majority of that money needs to go to basic HIV prevention information,” said Adam Tenner, executive director of Metro Teen AIDS. “I think the CDC is moving in the direction of telling you how to prevent HIV after you already have it.”

Janssen and other CDC officials hope that delivering prevention messages to HIV-positive people will discourage sexual practices that put others at risk for contracting the disease.

The CDC also targeted regions in which HIV is most concentrated with its funding, along with providing grants to four faith-based groups. Janssen could not provide the names of the organizations.

Critics said the CDC is missing the mark with its new approach.

“The national and regional trends aren’t always reflective of what’s happening at the local level, and so we’re very concerned local data was not included in the funding strategies,” Riggs said.