AIDS once wiped out an entire generation, and now with the ruthless execution of U.S. executive orders, once more, we are condemning people to die. Some of our Stephen Lewis Foundation partners rely on U.S. funding for 40% of their budgets. They are scrambling to make sense of the confusion and rapidly shifting directives that are following the initial order to halt their life-saving work.  

The U.S. State Department has issued a temporary waiver that might allow for the resumption of some HIV services, but its directives are unclear. The stop-work order is still in effect as organizations wait to hear from the U.S. government funders. In the meantime, our partners are not permitted to distribute HIV medications to their communities, if they were acquired with U.S. funds. The fear is palpable.  

What if this is just the beginning of a resurgence of the pandemic — a return to the nightmare of the early days when countless lives were lost to AIDS-related illnesses in the absence of essential intervention?  

The consequences of these decisions are harrowing. Lives will be lost. Stoppages to HIV treatment, tuberculosis programs, palliative care, antenatal services — each of these represents not just a statistic, but a human life at risk. Tens of thousands of orphaned children, many living with HIV or survivors of gender-based violence, who use U.S.-funded services that have also been frozen, are now facing an uncertain future. It is a devastating reality.  

We should all be furious — furious that we are once again staring down the very real possibility of a global AIDS pandemic.  

This is what will happen if mothers can’t get the medications they need to prevent the transmission of HIV to their babies. If young people are denied access to sexual and reproductive health services. If grandmothers, who have already buried too many children, are not able to care for the grandchildren left behind. If sex workers are denied access to the most basic HIV prevention tools. If the very existence of trans and intersex people is erased from government policy, and they can no longer access life-saving care.  

People will die. And with them, a piece of our shared humanity will die too. This is not just a crisis of health, it is a crisis of compassion, of justice and of our collective moral responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us. We must rise and fight — not just for the lives at risk today, but for the future we are determined to save. 

Please share this message widely. You can make a difference.  

Thank you for your solidarity,

Meg French
Executive Director
Stephen Lewis Foundation