LAS VEGAS, NV — (12-14-18) — After pressure from the U.S. Senate, Donald Trump grudgingly signs off on the World’s largest Anti-AIDS program PEPFAR.

The man who said in private that he hated AIDS research, had no choice but to sign the PEPFAR bill The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate surprised Trump for he thought that conservatives catering to religious groups would block the renewal from coming to a vote.

The PEPFAR program is now funded through 2023. Lawmakers were shocked at how fast Donald Trump signed the bill into law considering he has spoken among right wing Republican legislatures that he wanted to halt all funding for AIDS research.

PEPFAR Anti-AIDS Program

I guess he feels that the LGBTQ as well as the heterosexual community should just lay down and die without medicines and research to help cure this deadly disease. One asks why would Trump be against AIDS Research? Well, it turns out that he was trying to suck up to his religious right who has opposed the use of fetal tissue for testing in AIDS Research.

With AIDS Research utilizing fetal tissue for testing, it has garnered medications that have helped to save at leat 1 million people infected with AIDS.

PEPFAR is the United States’ largest anti-HIV/AIDS foreign aid program that made its debut in 2003, and has been renewed every five years since its conception.

In fact VOX reports that the PEPFAR program is the single-largest global health initiative targeting a single disease ever recorded. The PEPFAR provides support for antiretroviral treatment for 14.6 million people as of 2017.

“Hardly anyone was on antiretroviral treatment.” said Jennifer Kates, vice president and director for global health and HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Thanks primarily to PEPFAR and the Global Fund, about half of people with HIV are on treatment, around the world.” said Kates.

Kates added…“The data says there’s still a huge funding gap for HIV just as there’s a huge funding gap for malaria and child and maternal health and other areas. The question is: How do you maintain momentum around that?” said Kates.

We will be watching to see if Donald Trump will sabotage the funding that will be needed for the PEPFAR program as he has hinted in private that he wants to cut as much of the funding as he can.

Article by: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

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