PEPFAR Saved 26 Million Lives. The Administration Is Letting It Die. Act Now

PEPFAR has saved 26 million lives since George W. Bush launched it in 2003. Every president and every Congress has funded it for over two decades. In 2026, Congress appropriated close to $6 billion for global HIV/AIDS work. The money is there. The State Department is not releasing it. Programs the administration itself called “lifesaving” are shutting down. Support groups for teenagers with HIV in Africa have already closed. Dr. Caspian Chouraya, who runs HIV programs across 12 countries, is now studying labor law instead of treating patients because he can’t tell his staff whether they’ll be paid next month. Congress did its job. It appropriated the funds. The administration is sitting on them while USAID has been dismantled, delivery infrastructure has collapsed, and the administration’s own six-month deadline for replacement systems has passed with nothing ready. HIV does not wait. When treatment stops, drug resistance builds, viral loads spike, and people die. Millions of people on antiretroviral therapy depend on supply chains that took years to build. Those chains can break in weeks. As Sen. Patty Murray said: it is “this administration’s legal responsibility to ensure PEPFAR continues to serve people and save lives without interruption.” Demand the State Department release every dollar Congress appropriated. Hold hearings on why it hasn’t. These are mothers, fathers, and children who are alive today because America made a promise. We don’t break that promise because of a bureaucratic turf war. Do your job. Make them do theirs.