Is Ending HIV/AIDS Feasible?

Experts Report: Assistant Professor of Psychology Steve Du Bois

Date

Author

By Olivia Dimmer
Steve Du Bois explains President Trump's announcement to end HIV and AIDS.

TRANSCRIPT

You know, I think it's not the first time that a president has made such a claim in the State of the Union address, to say you know we really want to address or cure this.

Nixon has done it, Obama did it related to cancer, and so it's not totally unusual for a president to have
done this. And the irony is, I think, of the promises that have been made in this vein this is the one that is the most feasible.

You know the current state of HIV and AIDS right now is that we have a sense of how to treat it when it happens relatively successfully and to the extent that we can help to extend
people's lives. And for those who do not have HIV, we have a formula for how to
prevent that, and so we really could get a wrap on HIV/AIDS.

However, the current state of Trump's policies and looking to date at the things that he's done and
the things that he's said, those things are unfortunately inconsistent; I would go as
far as to say antithetical.

So this is a case of you know we would really like to see Trump and the administration make good on the words being spoken. That would be a beautiful thing. So many activists have responded in a way as to say please do, please show us, yes we would love to believe this.

However, using an evidence base, looking at what Trump has said and done, it truly is inconsistent, it's incongruent with the things that we need to do to move us toward the goal.