04/27/2026
I am outraged! HIV treatment is not a luxury.
AIDS deaths are not acceptable collateral damage.
Human lives are not bargaining chips.
Fund the programs. Release the medications. Stop exploiting vulnerable countries. Stop letting people die from a disease we already know how to treat.
Deaths from Advanced HIV Disease/AIDS should be decreasing dramatically, because we have medications so effective that many people can become undetectable within weeks of starting treatment. But instead, preventable illness and deaths are rising again because care is being interrupted, access is being restricted, and people are being abandoned by the very systems meant to protect them.
In Zambia, deaths due to advanced HIV disease that were reportedly at only 1 or 2 a month are now rising to 28 or more per month. That is not an accident. That is not inevitable. That is what happens when lifesaving HIV funding is disrupted, delayed, threatened, or turned into political leverage.
New HIV infection rates should be drastically decreasing because we have access to HIV prevention tools like PrEP-but that access is being blocked, testing programs are losing funding, community outreach is being cut, and babies are being born with HIV again because PEPFAR was cut.
The United States is using HIV funding access as a bargaining chip They are pressuring Zambia over an agreement for minerals and resources while people need medication to stay alive. This is so sick! It is morally bankrupt. It is colonialism dressed up as “foreign policy.” You do not hold antiretroviral treatment hostage to force a country to sign away access to its resources. You do not play political games with the lives of people living with HIV.
The Trump administration needs to get its s**t together. Don’t they see how this can affect the US in the long run?
PEPFAR was one of the most successful public health programs in history. It saved millions of lives. It helped turn HIV from a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition in areas of the world that were being ravaged by this disease. And now, because of cruelty, ignorance, arrogance, and a complete lack of accountability from people entrusted to protect public health, we are watching preventable illness and death rise again.
These cuts have set us back years in the fight to end the HIV epidemic.
The injustice is staggering. The lack of education among people making these decisions is dangerous. The lack of compassion is unforgivable.
HIV treatment is not a luxury.
AIDS deaths are not acceptable collateral damage.
Human lives are not bargaining chips.
Fund the programs. Release the medications. Stop exploiting vulnerable countries. Stop letting people die from a disease we already know how to treat.
A once-robust H.I.V. treatment and prevention system, credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, has begun to crumble.
