Yesterday, on December 1, AFC joined millions of impacted people and our partner organizations across the globe to commemorate World AIDS Day. Together in solidarity, we reflected on the over 35 million lives lost to AIDS-related illness since the epidemic began. We remembered our loved ones taken too soon. We honored the people who live with HIV today, and those who fight and have fought for the dignity and rights of people living with HIV for over 40 years.
One voice was notably absent this year, the 37th World AIDS Day: that of Donald Trump. For the first time since 1988, the White House declined to commemorate World AIDS Day and banned the federal government from doing so. This move is symbolic of the Trump administration's wholesale abandonment of people living with HIV, which has manifested in a real abandonment of the United States' leadership and obligations in the fight to end the HIV epidemic. From defunding US AID and discontinuing PEPFAR, to cutting Medicaid and ACA subsidies and CDC HIV prevention funding, the Trump Administration's negligence shows not only a dereliction of leadership in the HIV movement, but more broadly, a complete disregard for human life both at home and abroad. Trump’s muzzling of World AIDS Day commemoration is a clear and tragic reminder that Silence = Death.
We will not be silent, and we resolve to keep fighting. We will find a way to end the epidemic with or without the support of Donald Trump. In the vacuum created by the withdrawal of US leadership in our cause, we have faith that new leaders and new strategies will emerge. Just as the rest of the world is increasingly moving on without Donald Trump at the table, so will AIDS Foundation Chicago and the global HIV movement.
