Trump's Cuts to HIV Funding Put Lives at Risk - Including Mine.

When I was accepted into the Peace Corps to do HIV/AIDS prevention work in South Africa, I never imagined that an executive order would strip away that opportunity, or that my own government would simultaneously dismantle similar programs keeping people like myself alive in the U.S.

President Trump’s FY2026 budget slashes funding for HIV prevention, research, and care by 35%, including devastating cuts to the Ryan White Program, Medicaid, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These programs are lifelines for millions, including the half a million Americans with HIV who rely on Ryan White for treatment. For those of us that are undetectable, meaning we cannot transmit HIV thanks to medication, these cuts aren’t just policy shifts. They’re existential threats.

The budget eliminates $794 million from CDC HIV prevention, slashes NIH research by $2.4 billion, and ends HOPWA housing support.  The most dangerous cuts target Medicaid, which is the largest HIV care fund, and the Ryan White program, which fills gaps for low-income patients. The NIH hiring freeze and 36% cut to NIAID cripple research into long-acting treatments and vaccines, which will roll back decades of progress in a single blow.

For undetectable individuals, stable care isn't optional. It's what keeps us healthy and stops transmissions, yet these cuts will lead to more deaths, more infections, and reverse hard-won progress under the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative. Losing access to medication is not just a gap in treatment. It's a biological time bomb: viral load rebounds within weeks (making HIV transmissible again), drug resistance can develop (rendering future treatments ineffective), and immune system damage resumes (increasing AIDS-related risks). By gutting Medicaid, Ryan White, and NIH research, these policies don’t just harm individuals, they sabotage public health and fuel the epidemic’s resurgence. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s executive order banning aid to South Africa—justified by xenophobic rhetoric about land reform—has forced the Peace Corps to suspend programs there. I was set to work on HIV outreach, but now, because of political posturing, South Africa’s clinics will lose U.S. support. This isn’t fiscal responsibility—it’s cruelty. The same administration that claims to care about “ending AIDS” is sabotaging efforts both at home and abroad.

I am alive today because of the very programs this administration is dismantling - programs that keep people undetectable, housed, and healthy. These cuts are a death sentence for the most vulnerable. We're witnessing the willful destruction of painstaking medical progress that has saved millions of lives globally. If we allow HIV funding to collapse, we’ll witness a preventable crisis: more transmissions, more drug resistance, and more graves. This isn’t just about budgets; it’s about whether our government values the lives of people with HIV. Call your representatives and demand they reject these cuts. The time to act is now.