Trump admin fires HIV/AIDS council

Six members of the US council on HIV/AIDS had resigned to protest the administration's health policies. Now the remaining 10 members have been dismissed.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has dismissed the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), according to US media reports.

Six members of the council had resigned in June to protest the administration's health policies. The remaining 10 members were dismissed, the Washington Post reported.

The terminations were effective immediately, the paper reported, citing epidemiologist Patrick Sullivan.

Sullivan had been appointed to a four-year term in May 2016 under former US President Barack Obama.

PACHA, founded in 1995, provides advice to the administration regarding policies and research on the treatment, prevention and curing of HIV and AIDS.

"The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy," Scott Schoettes, a lawyer with the LGBT rights organisation Lambda Legal who had resigned this summer, told the Washington Post.

The administration wanted to make changes to the advisory committee in order to find its own appointees, according to media reports.


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Source: AAP


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