LGBT solidarity rally in February 2017 FLICKR, MATHIASWASIKLast week, President Donald Trump's administration dismissed the remaining members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA). This follows the mass resignation of half of the members of the council in June, in protest of the administration’s position on health policy.
The 10 remaining members of PACHA, who were appointed under former President Barack Obama's administration, received letters last Wednesday (December 27) “informing them that the administration was terminating their appointments,” PACHA’s executive director Kaye Hayes says in a statement (via The Washington Post).
PACHA was instituted in 1995 to make recommendations to the White House and the Secretary of Health and Human Services about ways to promote the treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS. It is intended to include “doctors, members of industry, members of the community, and, very importantly, people living with HIV,” Scott Schoettes, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization focusing on LGBT communities, and a former member of the council, tells The Washington Post. “Without it, you lose ...
