While Senate Republicans recently took steps to restore $400 million in proposed funding cuts to the Presidents Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a global HIV prevention program estimated to have saved 26 million lives in developing countries since its 2003 launch, the Trump administrations State Department has drafted a plan to end PEPFAR.The plan would replace PEPFAR with a for-profit program to detect HIV outbreaks in low-income countries and then sell them American medicines and services, The New York Times reported. Related Now is a uniquely terrible time to cut funding for HIV New breakthrough drugs could eradicate AIDS. Why are we hobbling their distribution? Draft documents viewed by the aforementioned publication seek to end PEPFAR within two years. The plan would implement Secretary of State Marco Rubios desired 42% reduction in PEPFARs current budget of $4.7 billion, amounting to a $1.9 billion reduction. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today PEPFAR would be replaced with a system to rapidly detect and respond to disease outbreaks in poor countries, using bilateral relationships between the affected regions and American companies that would then sell medical products and services.We believe that the transition of PEPFAR can become the premier example of the U.S. commitment to prioritizing trade over aid, opportunity over dependency and investment over assistance, the draft document states.Though the plans details have been in development over several weeks, have received comments from senior State Department officials, and have already been shared with PEPFAR partners in other countries, a State Department spokeswoman said the documents hadnt been finalized by department leadership and dont reflect the State Departments current PEPFAR policy. Despite PEPFARs past success, the president and congressional Republicans have repeatedly targeted the program, with some social conservatives claiming that PEPFAR funds are used to promote LGBTQ+ rights.On January 20, the president issued an executive order calling for a 90-day review to reevaluate and realign all U.S. foreign aid policiesand programs. Shortly after, he ordered the shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including its work on PEPFAR. Amidst widespread criticism, the administration offered a waiverallowing some PEPFAR programs to continue. However, those waivers havent been issued to any HIV-prevention programs that support HIV-positive men, sex workers, and LGBTQ+ people most at-risk of contracting the virus. Instead, the current administration only supports programs to counsel, treat, and provide condom and pre-exposure prophylactics (PrEP) to child-bearing women. While the White Houses original budget proposal for the coming years had sought to severely reduce all PEPFAR funding, the administration agreed to an amendment to the budget bill that would exempt the HIV/AIDS relief program.Nevertheless, the aforementioned alterations to PEPFARs provision may result in over 11 million additional HIV infections and 3 million additional AIDS-related deaths across sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, out gay Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) recently wrote in a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Health. Garcias letter demanded information about the administrations shameful and widespread elimination of HIV and AIDS-related research, vaccines, and life-saving programs, questioning whether their elimination was rooted in science or in misinformation and disinformation.Experts worry that HIV infection rates are rising in the African countries most affected by HIV as preventative medications run out across Africa. There may not even be a clear way to measure the damage caused by the funding cuts because those cuts have also ended data collection efforts to track the viruss local prevalence. Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.