$2.9 Million: NIH Funded HIV Prevention Research for Transgender Women. CDC Documents 49% HIV Prevalence. DOGE Terminated It.

The NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded research into HIV prevention, PrEP uptake, and transmission dynamics in transgender women and their male partners. The epidemiological basis is unambiguous: CDC data documents HIV prevalence among Black transgender women at approximately 44% and among transgender women overall at rates that, by the Lancet’s global systematic review, reach 49% in some cohorts — among the highest documented HIV prevalence in any population in the United States. The DOGE-flagged grant studied barriers to PrEP uptake in this population.

PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is a CDC-recommended daily medication that reduces HIV acquisition risk by over 99% when taken consistently. Understanding why transgender women — who face documented healthcare avoidance, provider discrimination, and insurance barriers — have low PrEP uptake despite extreme HIV exposure risk is directly relevant to the federal “Ending the HIV Epidemic” initiative, which was launched under Trump’s first term and set targets for HIV incidence reduction by 2030. Terminating this research is in tension with the HIV elimination goals the administration set.