Trump Admin ends Pepfar funding

The new administration and Congress have stopped funding to the PEPFAR program. This long standing program is tasked with helping countries around the world to combat the spread of HIV. IT provides both HIV treatment medication as well as PrEP to help both reduce the number of people capable of passing on the virus and to block transmission to those not yet infected. This approach to global health actually protects our country by reducing the prevalence of HIV in the global population from which it could easily spread back to our shores.

According to the POZ.com article, PEPFAR was launched by President George W. Bush in 2003, and is credited with saving 26 million lives and preventing nearly 8 million cases of mother-to-child HIV transmission since its inception. More information is available on the PEPFAR website. In 2024, with a budget of $6.5 billion, it provided HIV treatment for more than 20 million people, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for 2.5 million people and HIV testing services for nearly 84 million people.

We think this is a shortsighted move by the administration that can only come back to hurt us over time, costing millions more in treatment as compared to the money spent on preventing the spread now. The unlikely narrative that this funding supports abortion has not been proven and would be cause for administrative withdrawal of funding from organizations that would do so.

https://www.poz.com/article/trump-officials-order-immediate-halt-pepfar-funding