March 11: On This Day In 2019
Just a month earlier, in his State of the Union speech, Trump had promised to defeat AIDS in the U.S. and beyond.
But OTDI 2019, the White House’s budget contained $1.7 billion in combined cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
PEPFAR had been a signature achievement of President George W. Bush, and Trump seems to personally hate all things related to the Bush family.
The Health Global Access Project condemned Trump’s proposal: “This budget is antithetical to ending the AIDS pandemic. At the level of cuts proposed, PEPFAR and the Global Fund would interrupt the provision of life-saving treatment for people living with HIV and scale back essential HIV prevention programs.”
It seems obvious, and we have seen it happen with Ebola, Covid, AIDS, West Nile, and countless others: Diseases that run rampant overseas will inevitably reach American shores. Fighting them overseas is immensely helpful in the efforts to keep cases low in the United States, too. Apparently it’s not obvious to Trump.
Sources/Links for further reading
HealthGap.org reacts to Trump’s proposed cuts
KFF reports on the ongoing efforts of Congressional Republicans to cut AIDS funding
Summary: Year-round Daylight Saving Time?