--- title: "Man Who Believes Poppers Cause AIDS Is Planning to Gut America’s HIV Prevention Office" description: "AIDS denialist RFK Jr. is reportedly planning to shut down an HIV prevention office just a few weeks after raiding a poppers company." date: "2025-04-01" modified: "2025-04-01" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/rfk-jr-poppers-hiv-prevention" categories: - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "AIDS" - "HIV" - "poppers" - "rfk jr" --- # Man Who Believes Poppers Cause AIDS Is Planning to Gut America’s HIV Prevention Office ![AIDS denialist RFK Jr. is reportedly planning to shut down an HIV prevention office just a few weeks after raiding a poppers company.]() *\Image: Andrew Harnik via Getty / Futurism\* The [nepo baby]() in charge of America's healthcare ascribes to [homophobic conspiracy theories]() about the origins of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) — and he's purportedly planning to close the office that helps prevent its spread. According to federal health officials who[ spoke to *CBS News*](), health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr is slated to lay off the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department's entire Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy, as well as its minority health office. This move comes amid a broader "restructuring" that will, [per a recent announcement](), eliminate 20,000 positions at the agency. It also comes just a few weeks after the Food and Drug Administration, which is part of HHS, [raided a manufacturer]() of amyl nitrate, the scientific name for the popular — and legal-ish — sex and club inhalant better known as "poppers." In a statement that [circulated on social media](), poppers company Double Scorpio announced that it was closing following the raid and said that other manufacturers may also have been impacted. Not long after, RFK Jr.'s [past claims about poppers resurfaced](), which included his insistence that the inhalant causes AIDS — and not, as per decades-established medical science, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). "The initial signals of AIDS, Kaposi’s sarcoma and Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), were both strongly linked to amyl nitrite — 'poppers' — a popular drug among promiscuous gays," the [political scion wrote]() in a book he penned about Anthony Fauci, the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Other common 'wasting' symptoms were all associated with heavy drug use and lifestyle stressors." Ironically, president Donald Trump was, during his first administration, seemingly a huge advocate for HIV prevention and research. In 2019, Trump launched the "Ending the HIV Epidemic" initiative, which made pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications free for low-income Americans — and made him the first president in American history ever to make HIV and AIDS a federal priority. When announcing the initiative [during his state of the union]() address that year, Trump boasted that "scientific breakthroughs" funded by his program would help "defeat AIDS in America." With Trump 2.0, however, it seems that dream has all but died. A few weeks ago, insider sources [told the *Wall Street Journal*]() that HHS is reducing or eliminating entirely its funding for HIV prevention — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's free PrEP program. As [*The Guardian* reported]() soon after claims of the forthcoming HIV and infectious disease office cuts, the National Institutes of Health, which is also under HHS, terminated at least 145 grants for HIV research worth a cumulative $450 million. Between these slated HIV prevention rollbacks and the [resurgence of AIDS denialism](), it's starting to feel a lot like the 1980s and 90s again — an era marred by the loss of [nearly half a million people]() in the United States while their government turned away. **More on the new HHS:** [*Government Hires Crackpot to "Study" Nonexistent Link Between Vaccines and Autism*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()