Dr. Fauci warns that the new wave of GOP homophobia could hinder the fight against HIV

Dr. Anthony Fauci became a household name after working to lead the country through the COVID-19 pandemic. But long before COVID-19 existed, Fauci was already known for being at the helm of America’s medical response efforts to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

In a recent interview with Advocate in recognition of World AIDS Day, Fauci said anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment today is reaching the same levels he witnessed in the early 1980s when the AIDS epidemic was just starting.

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“I’m very, very concerned about the resurgence of the anti-LGBTQ+ movement in this country,” Fauci said. “It’s reverting back to the way it was 40 years ago, which is terrible. We certainly have got to do something about that and push back against that.”

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“We have got to make sure that the extreme right in Congress realize they can’t get away with what they are doing,” he added, explaining that it is time to be as “aggressive and proactive” as activists were in “the old days.”

“They organized. They were very vocal,” he explained. “We’ve got to get back to that. We can’t let the insidious resurgence of anti-LGBTQ+ feelings in this country go without pushing back very aggressively against it.”

Fauci also referenced recent revelations that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wrote a foreword wholeheartedly endorsing a book with strong anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.

“You know, when somebody like Johnson writes a foreword to a book that condemns the gay community, you should blast him in the media for doing that. You should blast him every single time something comes up where he’s attacking the community,” Fauci said.

Fauci’s and President George W. Bush’s signature AIDS program, PEPFAR, was established in 2003 and has invested over $100 billion in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. It has helped save millions of lives. But over the past few months, Republicans have used PEPFAR as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations, withholding over a billion dollars in funding. The GOP has also proposed over $750 million in cuts to domestic HIV/AIDS programs for the 2024 fiscal year.

“For us in the United States, when they decrease the funding and the ability to get money for the implementation of programs absolutely negatively impacts our goal. No doubt about it,” Fauci said.

“The whole idea about pushing back on science, the anti-science attitude of these people, the antigay attitude of people, it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it, and that really worries me. I mean, when you have legislators in the United States Congress unabashedly being antigay, that is just crazy.”

Fauci also emphasized how close we are to truly reigning in the epidemic, but said anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination could get in the way of that.

“We have incredibly good therapy, incredibly good pre-exposure prophylaxis that are easy to administer, and easy to get people to be below detectable… In the city of Amsterdam, the number of new cases last year were nine — nine in a city as big as Amsterdam. And in countries in southern Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, they are already well on the way to end the outbreak. Now with countries in southern Africa and developed nations like the Netherlands and even Australia, if they can do it, we here in the U.S. sure as hell can do it too.”