May 9, 2025
This week the proposed US Fiscal Year 2026 budget was released by the White House and would slash funding across the entire federal government, gutting the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services, and further reduce foreign assistance. In addition, a hostile critic of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is appointed to lead its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines amongst other things. Also, the UN is looking at significant cost-cutting, with UNAIDS looking to shed more than half its staff, along with reports of possibly folding it into WHO. Read on for more.
Join us later today for Science in the Crosshairs: Research Advocacy in a Time of Crisis, a webinar unpacking what these changes mean for communities, research, and advocacy, and how we can fight back.
FY26 Proposed Budget and Implications for Research and Global Health
The US presidential administration proposed a Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) “skinny budget” that would drastically cut global health, HIV prevention, and biomedical research. While only a topline framework submitted to Congress (since Congress has the actual “power of the purse”), the budget proposes $163 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending, including a 26% reduction to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the department that oversees the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and FDA. The proposed budget would cut the NIH by nearly $18 billion, continue to gut USAID’s global health work, and eliminate research and programs on gender, DEI, and climate.
IMPLICATIONS: This proposed skinny budget is an effort to embed into the formal budget process the cuts made by recent Executive Orders, which are being currently challenged in multiple court cases. If this proposed skinny budget is approved by Congress and becomes law, it would further decimate the infrastructure needed to accelerate science and innovation, hamper delivery of HIV prevention, stall progress on new tools like injectable PrEP, and weaken global preparedness for future pandemics. This is a profound retreat from science and equity.
FIGHT BACK: Join us later today for a critical conversation, Science in the Crosshairs: Research Advocacy in a Time of Crisis where we will discuss the escalating threats to health research and equity-centered science. This webinar will explore the implications of the proposed FY26 budget and what these attacks mean for communities, researchers, and implementers, and will identify actionable advocacy strategies to fight back.
READ:
- Trump budget proposes unprecedented, ‘reckless’ cuts to foreign aid—Devex
- Trump’s Reagan Moment on HIV/AIDS — Ratevosian Substack
Secretary of Health and Human Services will appear before Senate HELP Committee
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will appear before the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee on May 14 to discuss the FY26 budget proposal for the Department of Health and Human Services.
AVAC and more than a dozen partners submitted a letter to the Senate HELP Committee for the record urging lawmakers to reject the cuts to NIH funding for HIV, TB, and STI research and highlighting the impact of these cuts on lifesaving innovation and research infrastructure.
READ/WATCH:
- Hearing on Fiscal Year 2026 Department of Health and Human Services Budget—Senate Help Committee
- US Health Secretary Kennedy to testify before Senate panel May 14—Reuters
Potential Merger of UNAIDS and WHO
A confidential memo from the UN80 Initiative Task Force outlines proposals to restructure the UN system in response to budget pressures. This includes a potential merger of UNAIDS into the World Health Organization (WHO). The proposal frames this merger as a strategy to create a more “unified and efficient global health authority,” as UNAIDS faces deep financial uncertainty following the loss of US funding. In addition this week, UNAIDS announced that it will layoff more than 50% of staff in a massive restructuring. UNAIDS now plans to reduce the current number of staff from 608 to approximately 280 over time, according to a communique from the UNAIDS cabinet, seen by Devex.
IMPLICATIONS: The merger would fundamentally reshape global HIV governance. It could shift the focus from civil society and multi-stakeholder advocacy and community leadership of UNAIDS to a more technocratic, health-systems-oriented approach under WHO. Such a move risks sidelining civil society voices and undermining the rights-based, equity-driven response that has been central to HIV progress for decades.
READ:
- Exclusive: Full Text of UN80 Task Force Pitch for Streamlined UN; UNAIDs Merger with WHO—Health Policy Watch
- UNAIDS will lose more than 50% of staff in restructuring—Devex
Vinay Prasad to Lead US FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research
Dr. Vinay Prasad, an oncologist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, was appointed as the director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). CBER oversees the regulation of vaccines, gene therapies, and other biologic products.
IMPLICATIONS: Prasad has been critical of expedited reviews for vaccines and other biologics in the past. His appointment could slow approval of new innovations and shift the agency toward more ideologically conservative regulatory standards.
READ:
- Vinay Prasad tapped to run FDA center that regulates vaccines, gene therapies—STAT
- FDA Commissioner Marty Makary taps Vinay Prasad to head up CBER—Fierce Pharma
New Plaintiff Joins AVAC vs. Department of State Lawsuit
A new plaintiff, The Center for Victims of Torture, has joined AVAC’s lawsuit challenging the US government’s foreign aid freeze. Their inclusion underscores the urgent harm being caused to organizations as funding remains delayed or denied. Since April 23, the government has processed 59 payments for work completed before February 13. Seventy-nine payments remain outstanding. The government says these are more complex and is targeting May 15 as a deadline completion. They also note receiving 47 new payment requests from plaintiffs recently.
READ: Center for Victims of Torture Joins Lawsuit Challenging Halt to Foreign Aid Funding—Center for Victims of Torture
Funding Cuts Threaten STI Research and Development
This new resource outlines how recent US policy changes and funding cuts are threatening STI research, diagnostics, and vaccine development and jeopardizing global prevention efforts.
What We’re Reading & Watching
- Inside the Bloodbath at the NIH—The Nation
- Trump’s NIH Axed Research Grants Even After a Judge Blocked the Cuts, Internal Records Show—ProPublica
- USAID Cuts Could Sever HPV Prevention—Think Global Health
- Borders on the Insane: New NIH policy on funding foreign scientists stirs outrage—Science
- New NIH Foreign Subaward Structure Enhances Integrity, Accountability, Oversight, and National Security of NIH Funded Research—NIH
- HIV Testing and Outreach Falter as Trump Funding Cuts Sweep the South—KFF
- Europe Makes a Pitch to Attract Scientists Shunned by the US—The New York Times
- The Road to Lenacapavir, a Breakthrough HIV Treatment—AAAS
- My New Deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth—The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
- Gender-Based Violence in Kenya and U.S. Foreign Aid—Think Global Health
- Surviving on Hope: Sex workers face HIV resurgence as ARVs, condoms vanish—Daily Nation (Kenya)
- In Historic First, the Global Fund Procures African-Made First-Line HIV Treatment—The Global Fund
Resources
- PxWire Volume 15, Issue 2—AVAC
- Worldwide Prevention, Shared Protection: Why STI Funding Matters—AVAC
- Politics and Global Health: The Need for a New, Resilient Architecture—AVAC
- Research Matters—AVAC, HIVMA, TAG
- The Trump Administration’s Foreign Aid Review: Status of PEPFAR—KFF
- Scaling Back the Nation’s HIV Response? What the Trump Administration’s HHS Budget May Do—KFF
- Tracking the Freeze: Real-Time Impact on Key Populations—GBGMC
- The Best Investment You Didn’t Know You Made: How NIH Funding Fuels Innovation and Economic Growth—amfAR
Resources for Researchers
AVAC, TAG and the HIV Medicine Association (HIVMA) co-created a new resource hub, Research Matters, to support researchers advocating for sustained NIH funding. These tools include an Advocacy Toolkit to help move our collective efforts forward. We will continue to update the hub with resources to support continued advocacy for biomedical research.
In Case You Missed It
Long-time partner AND fierce advocate, Yvette Raphael, is being recognized as part of the AAAS Mani L. Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award for lenacapavir.
Thanks to Yvette, the African Women Prevention Community Accountability Board and so many others, lenacapavir is now a real option for HIV prevention. Now we must translate this breakthrough and this award into action.