Lawmakers Demand Transparency as State Dept. Omits Key PEPFAR Data, Warning of Disrupted HIV/AIDS Efforts

WASHINGTON, D.C. —US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and US Representative Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter yesterday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, raising serious concerns over the incomplete release of Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 programmatic data for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

The lawmakers underscore that PEPFAR’s long-standing bipartisan support is rooted in its record of transparency, warning that the omission of data from the first three quarters of FY2025 undermines congressional oversight and accountability. They call on the State Department to immediately release the missing data and maintain PEPFAR’s established reporting standards.

The programmatic data, released on April 17th, only provided information for the fourth quarter of FY 2025. The lawmakers criticized this as an “entirely avoidable outcome of the administration’s chaotic decision to disrupt essential work” during the transition of global health programs to the Department of State.

“The failure to maintain accurate data was an entirely avoidable outcome of the administration’s chaotic decision to disrupt essential work without a plan to sustain basic oversight and accountability mechanisms,” the lawmakers wrote. “These failures are not an excuse to avoid releasing available data to the public in accordance with the standing expectations for transparency of the PEPFAR program and existing statute, and we ask that data from the first three quarters of FY2025 be released publicly”.

The letter also raised alarm about trends suggested by preliminary Q1-Q4 data that was briefly posted in January 2026, which indicated “substantial disruptions across PEPFAR services”. Specifically, they noted a stark decline in testing, diagnosis, and treatment initiations, particularly for infants and PrEP initiations. They stated that this data raises “serious concerns about the prospects of achieving and maintaining epidemic control,” despite the State Department briefing Congress that the number of individuals on treatment remained stable.

Shaheen and Meeks concluded by emphasizing the risk to the program’s overall goal. “After decades of US investment, PEPFAR, was on track to eradicate HIV/AIDS by 2030,” they wrote. “Without this understanding, we risk squandering the US’s legacy of leading the worldwide charge to eradicate HIV/AIDS and save lives”.