Activists are headed to Sacramento today to protest proposed cuts in state funding for HIV/AIDS services totaling more than $80 million.

"California has been a leader in AIDS care, and it's definitely slipping out of that role," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles.

The cuts come at a time when an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 new cases of HIV are reported in California each year. "There's a grave concern from a public health point of view that capping these programs is going to result in the spread of the disease and much greater expenses down the road," Weinstein said.

Many of the cuts shift the responsibility for HIV services to the federal and local governments. Among the proposed changes:
*All state funding for education, prevention, counseling, and testing programs would be eliminated. Federal funding of $8.9 million would remain, down from $41.8 million allocated in the current year.
*Early intervention programs would lose all their $13.78 million in state funding while retaining $12.4 million from the federal government.
*An $8 million program that monitors the effectiveness of HIV therapies would be eliminated.
*$12 million would be sliced from the state AIDS Drug Assistance Program for poor patients, who would be asked to share in the cost of their medications.

It is not clear that local organizations will be able to compensate for the proposed reductions in funding. AIDS Project Los Angeles recently announced it would not receive an anticipated $300,000 in local funding to provide its MPowerment program, an outreach and educational effort aimed at preventing HIV infection among young gay men.