Out Alliance Supports Demonstration Against CDC Censorship

Out Alliance supports demonstration against CDC censorship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT: ROWAN COLLINS, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

585-244-8640

(Rochester, N.Y., December 19, 2017) – Late last week, Centers for Disease Control staff were advised to avoid the use of 7 words: transgender, science-based, evidence-based, diversity, vulnerable, fetus, and entitlement in forthcoming budget documents.

A demonstration is planned in response for Thursday, December 21, 2017 in front of the Federal Building – 100 State Street – from 8:00-9:30pm. All are welcome and encouraged to join in solidarity.

 “To ignore the diversity of the U.S. population is to put countless communities at risk,” said Colleen Raimond, Out Alliance Board Chair. “The LGBTQ+ community exists and continues to have a unique set of public health needs. When a silence has driven federal public health policy in the past, it has been deadly.”

Notably, federal response to the 1980s HIV/AIDS epidemic paints a picture of the potential effects of the CDC’s actions today. People died from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses every day while government agencies refused to even say the words “gay” or “AIDS.”

The United States only made progress on the HIV/AIDS epidemic by breaking that silence, acknowledging that the epidemic was happening, and naming the population it disproportionately affected.

The stark lesson of that time is that public health threats must be named and described clearly to be addressed — and that the consequences of not doing so are fatal.

Since then, the CDC has done important science- and evidence-based work to overcome the effects of that silence. Acknowledging LGBTQ+, specifically transgender, people and health needs has allowed the CDC to conduct research that informs public policy decisions, improves health outcomes for LGBTQ+ people, and ultimately saves lives.

“The silence of the CDC will not only harm our community but have far-reaching effects on the rest of our country. The curtailment of evidence-based health science is dangerous and unconscionable. If the CDC cannot name health disparities in specific communities, they cannot protect people from health threats, as their mission states,” says Out Alliance Executive Director, Scott Fearing. “The CDC works to improve health – to hamper that work can cost lives.”

The Out Alliance was founded on the campus of the University of Rochester as a student organization in 1971, in 1973 it incorporated as a 501c3 not-for-profit and became a community organization. The Out Alliance mission is to be Champions for LGBTQ Life and Culture, and they envision a future where LGBTQ people of all ages are free to be fully participating citizens, living lives in which they are safe, stable and fully respected.