PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: May 21 2025
Contact for information: Asia Russell | asia@healthgap.org | 267-475-2645
AIDS Activists Disrupt Rubio’s House Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, Responding to Lie that PEPFAR is “85% Functional” and 85% of Current Recipients are “Getting Treatment”
Protesters Demand Full Reinstatement of PEPFAR’s Programs and $4.85 Billion in Funding for FY26
(Washington, DC) AIDS activists protested Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, of his gutting of funding and political support for the U.S. government’s global HIV program, PEPFAR, which has saved more than 26 million lives across 50 countries. Rubio falsely claimed today that 85% of PEPFAR recipients are “getting treatment” for HIV; yesterday he lied and told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee “85% of PEPFAR is functional.” They were arrested holding signs while chanting “Rubio’s lies kill people with AIDS!”
“PEPFAR is not ‘85% functional.’ PEPFAR has been gutted under Marco Rubio’s watch; his incompetence and lies are outrageous,” said Kendall Martinez-Wright of the Treatment Action Group, who was one the 5 activists arrested today. “As of today, awards delivering essential prevention and treatment services for millions of people remain cancelled.”
Recent analysis has shown that 71% of HIV awards have been cancelled by Rubio. Medicines procurement experts have predicted lifesaving drugs for babies with HIV and adults who have advanced HIV disease will stock out in weeks in countries representing the majority of PEPFAR’s portfolio. thousands of health workers have been fired across sub Saharan Africa. PEPFAR’s HIV prevention programs, including funding to reach millions of people, particularly sex workers, LGBTQ+ people, drug users, and young women with long-acting antiviral drugs for HIV prevention have also been decimated. These revolutionary new products are nearly 100% effective in stopping HIV infection through pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
In addition to the illegal impoundment of billions in PEPFAR funding already appropriated for FY24 and FY25, Rubio is proposing a 40% budget cut to PEPFAR in the FY26 “skinny budget” request for the State Department. “When he was a Senator from Florida, Rubio was the first to celebrate PEPFAR’s successes,” said Asia Russell, Executive Director of Health GAP. “We are facing an HIV prevention and treatment catastrophe created by his own hypocritical policy decisions.”
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