TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Tim Haver has lived with HIV since 1986. When he was initially diagnosed, he didn’t take the news well, so he didn’t start treatments for HIV until years later.
“It was one of those things that you didn’t tell anybody about,” Haver said. “It was a larger regiment of pills that caused a lot of different side effects.”
However, now he said treatments have made a lot of advancements. Treatments can now make an HIV positive person undetectable, meaning they cannot pass on the virus, which is the case with Haver.
“It’s a lot easier to get access to medicine if you have access to it,” Haver said.
In Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025, the CDC got over one billion dollars for HIV, AIDS, and STD prevention. 2026’s budget now gives them only over a quarter of that, which is about $300 million.
The Trump Administration said they’re combining several programs to improve coordination for services.
“Any shift in the budget is going to cause, for me, a lot of shifting around of money. If I have to start paying more for medications than I do now, then that's going to take money out of my food budget,” Haver said.
Haver is a patient at the Southern Arizona Aids Foundation.
The administration is setting aside over two billion dollars for places with HIV services, but SAAF said they’re still losing over two million dollars.
“There could be an increase of STIs and an increase of HIV cases,” Chris Charles said.
Charles is the chief programs officer at SAAF. Testing, he said, went from five days a week to three, meaning testing fewer people.
“People would go longer without knowing their status or getting any type of testing,” he said.
For HIV prevention and treatment services, SAAF said hours are also being cut, and 14 positions were already cut.
“Increased the claim caseloads for case managers and reduced the services that we’re able to provide,” Charles said about the impact.
Pima County said their health department is not affected by the federal cuts.
Haver said he’s just lucky to have existing programs.
“We all have to pull together. We’re all in this together,” he said.
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Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
