The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the largest, most successful program ever to address a specific disease. It has helped prevent HIV infection and contained the spread of the virus in more than 50 countries. It is credited with saving 2.5 million lives and preventing 5.5 million babies from being born with HIV. For the first time in 20 years, funding for PEPFAR is being threatened by a bipartisan Congress that is in a heated debate about continuing funding for the program. Lorna Lynn, MD, Vice President for Medical Education Research at ABIM, and Jesse Milan, Jr., JD, President and CEO of AIDs International and member of the ABIM Infectious Disease Board, discuss the implications of this remarkable and successful program being potentially discontinued.
