EGPAF Responds to Biden Administration’s 2023 Budget

WASHINGTON, D.C. – 09 March, 2023 – In response to the Biden Administration’s recently released budget and its proposed cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) President and CEO Chip Lyons issued the following statement:  

“President Biden’s budget falls short of providing the appropriate funds needed to support the global HIV response and hinders the progress to be made in the fight against pediatric AIDS. While EGPAF appreciates the Administration’s strong support to reauthorize the PEPFAR program, we are concerned by a $25 million reduction to PEPFAR’s funding and other cuts to bilateral programs meant to address tuberculosis and malaria.  

With broad bipartisan support, PEPFAR is history’s most significant public health response to a single disease, having saved over 25 million lives since its inception in 2003. Cuts to PEPFAR put the hard-won gains in the global HIV response at risk.  The world looks to the United States for leadership in the fight for an AIDS-free generation, and the current budget does not offer the required resources needed to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.  

The President knows we are on the cusp of an end to HIV, but the proposed budget does not meet the urgency of this important moment that is needed to ‘finish the job’ and end HIV once and for all.”