The Trump administration may have finally released PEPFAR data, but the impact of the funding cuts extends beyond what any datasets can capture: theforsaken.substack.com/p/beyond-the...

The Trump administration may have finally released PEPFAR data, but the impact of the funding cuts extends beyond what any datasets can capture: theforsaken.substack.com/p/beyond-the...

AIDS group sues Trump administration over undisclosed agreement with Gilead www.statnews.com/pharmalot/20... via @statnews.com

An approach of Trump’s HIV ‘strategy’ is signing a bunch of incoherent deals negotiated in secret with exploitative conditions, funding cuts, and no ambition to actually defeat HIV. Another one has just crumbled: www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Mike Reid, PEPFAR’s chief science officer, announced Monday that he was stepping down. Plus, PEPFAR data has finally been released, but results for the first three quarters of the last fiscal year are still missing.

Direct HIV financing can work. But, under the Trump administration, will it? That's the question I set out to try and answer over the months I spent reporting this article.

Part 2: "Who controls South Africa’s lenacapavir rollout? Not South Africa" With African Alliance @hji-sa.bsky.social health-e.org.za/2026/04/21/w...

Lessons from Zambia via @theandrewgreen.bsky.social on G2G global health efforts. This quote from his FP piece sums it up: "...experts involved in Zambia’s transition warn that direct government financing is being introduced without a full understanding of what made their approach successful."

Direct HIV financing can work. But, under the Trump administration, will it? That's the question I set out to try and answer over the months I spent reporting this article.

When the Trump administration announced it wanted to directly fund governments to provide HIV services, it pointed to four Zambian provinces where this transition had already taken place. Washington planned to replicate their success. So I traveled to Zambia to try to learn two things:

“In 2025, 31 people died in the custody of ICE. In 2026, the count has already reached fifteen—and it is only April. Nearly every one of those deaths, as with nearly every death in ICE custody, would have been prevented with adequate medical care and humane treatment.”

We are suing the State Department for failing to disclose health agreements with several African nations. The government missed its FOIA deadline. This secrecy doesn't just impact the public's right to know how the government is approaching assistance. It may cost lives.

Both of Marco Rubio’s parents were born in Cuba. Marco Rubio was born in Miami in 1971, before they became US citizens. He is a US citizen because he was born in the US under birthright citizenship. #Hypocrites

Cholera aid for African countries stalled by Iran conflict reut.rs/4c8VXfX

Oudone Lothirath missed four out of five chemotherapy appointments while in ICE detention and received no medical care there. Now he will likely die in a matter of days. www.startribune.com/how-ice-deta...

Turns out that when every Somali case I have in court suddenly got expedited and reassigned to a new judge, it wasn't just me! The DOJ has officially denied that there is an expedited "Somali Docket," but now the public data refutes their denial. Here are the highlights: 🧵 bklg.org/blog/somali-...

People who inject drugs, are LGBTQI and/or sex workers believe that part of the reason for US aid cuts is their elimination. And their theory stacks up. Those who accept US health/HIV funding should consider their complicity theforsaken.substack.com/p/they-have-...

"In cooperating with the Trump administration, faith-based organizations have forfeited any trust vulnerable communities might have had in them, leaving them in no position to sustain the HIV response" theforsaken.substack.com/p/they-have-...

The pipeline for new antimicrobial projects shrank since the Access to Medicine Foundation released its last benchmark five years ago.

Breaking: Dr. Robert Malone, vice chair of the federal committee that recommends vaccines to Americans, angrily resigned his position on Tuesday. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/h...

On the one hand, it's good that the CDC keeps extending most of its PEPFAR programs, rather than letting them expire and robbing people of services. On the other hand, it is hard on orgs when these extensions are dribbled out three or six months at a time: theforsaken.substack.com/p/another-ro...

Global HIV programs run by the CDC that were supposed to shut down at the end of this month, have been given a three-month extension. But the State Dept has told CDC to pay for the programs with contingency funds, resulting in further cuts to lifesaving services: www.devex.com/news/is-pepf...

Global HIV programs run by the CDC that were supposed to shut down at the end of this month, have been given a three-month extension. But the State Dept has told CDC to pay for the programs with contingency funds, resulting in further cuts to lifesaving services: www.devex.com/news/is-pepf...

If the worst outcomes predicted when the U.S. collapsed global HIV services haven't come to pass, it's largely due to committed health workers at a community level who have continued to show up without pay, @npr.org reports: www.npr.org/2026/03/20/n...

Royer Perez-Jimenez was 19 years old. He died by suicide at 3am on March 16 at Glades County Detention Center in Florida. He is the 2nd person to die in ICE custody this week, the 13th this year, and the 42nd under Trump. 🧵

SA wants to make its own version of the 2X yearly #HIV prevention jab that could help end #Aids. Local drug companies now have until April 7 to apply to be on a government shortlist to make the shot. But only if Gilead, who has the recipe, approves. bhekisisa.org/health-news-...

'They have some agenda they are pushing' After writing about the role of faith-based organizations in the Trump administration's global HIV response, I got some feedback important reporting by @theandrewgreen.bsky.social theforsaken.substack.com/p/they-have-...

A federal judge has removed Peter Marocco from USADF, a ruling that comes after a yearlong legal battle, mass terminations, and a corruption scandal involving a senior USADF official.

The U.S. is considering escalating pressure on Zambia to sign away its mineral rights by withholding life-saving HIV treatment from Zambians as early as May according to a leaked memo to @stephanienolen.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...

An Afghan immigrant who previously provided support to the U.S. military has died less than 24 hours after being detained by ICE: nbcnews.com/world/asia/a... Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal is at least the 12th person to die in ICE custody this year.

The point is "that the people who relied on these services have fully lost any trust in providers they understand to be, at the very least, willing to tolerate a Trump administration determined to persecute them." theforsaken.substack.com/p/they-have-... Thanks @theandrewgreen.bsky.social

By cooperating with the Trump administration to provide HIV services, faith-based organizations risk alienating the people who would benefit most from their programs: theforsaken.substack.com/p/they-have-...

This piece is surely one of the most inane things I have read in my entire life.

In one of the highlights of my journalistic career, here is @lastweektonight.com actually citing my reporting during the latest segment on the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU8S...

The US ambassador to South Africa said they're running out of patience with it not addressing US demands. The US "asks" are ending Black Economic Empowerment, the expropriation act (which has limited application), condemning "Kill the Boer" (already done), prioritising farm murders & non-alignment

16,000 people living with HIV are expected to lose coverage from the AIDS Drugs Assistance Program due to Florida's funding cuts. Read Kamaria Laffrey's pre-obituary as a long-term survivor in Florida. "Kamaria Laffrey writes an indictment of a system that’s failing people living with HIV."

ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there. They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.

The new America First Global Health Strategy cuts off U.S. support to local organizations to fight HIV, except for faith-based organizations. But what happens to services for the communities faith groups cannot access?

The Trump administration still owes hundreds of millions of dollars to former USAID partners. But the people who stuck around to close out the agency told @alterigoe.bsky.social the administration's "intention is not to pay": www.devex.com/news/inside-... This is a must-read story.

The America First Global Health Strategy names only one specific organization as an example of the kind of work it intends to support: Circle of Hope. So I traveled to Zambia, where the faith-based org works, to find out why it has earned Washington's support: www.devex.com/news/are-fai...

As it slashes support for other HIV service providers, the Trump administration says it wants to continue to work with faith-based organizations. These groups are important partners because they reach a lot of people in places like Zambia. But not everyone: www.devex.com/news/are-fai...

Key reading for knowing how and why things are moving in global health

Pregnant Anita Yadav died after waiting for permission to seek medical care. U.S. aid cuts had already dismantled a nationwide program designed to “break gender norms that undervalued women’s lives.”

Victims of a sex trafficking network said to rival that of Jeffrey Epstein tell Megan Clement why Ritz Paris and Al-Fayed organisations beyond Harrods must now be scrutinised https://bit.ly/4siohSA

Are we reaching a tipping point on these bilateral health financing agreements? www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

"These terms are vastly worse than other deals. The US is conditioning life-saving health services on plundering the mineral wealth of [Zambia]. It’s shameless exploitation, which is immoral... when health programs are treated like a bargaining chip by a rapacious administration, everyone suffers”

Zambia's leaked health 'deal' with the US includes US exclusive access to health data for 10 years and pathogen data for 25 years. Plus exclusive access to Zambia's mining. And the US can withdraw and collapse Zambia's health system if Zambia doesn't agree www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Zambia is on the brink of signing a five-year health financing agreement that will require the country to share data with the U.S. for decades after the agreement ends according to a leaked copy I saw: www.theguardian.com/global-devel... That’s not all…

US accused of ‘shameless exploitation’ over proposed Zambian health aid deal