Communities across the globe commemorated World AIDS Day today, honoring those who've died

from the disease and reaffirming a commitment to end an epidemic that's killed more than 44 million

people worldwide.

But this year, for the first time in decades, the U.S. government decided not to mark the occasion

and the Trump administration has reportedly barred agencies from commemorating

or participating in the event as well. William Brangham has more.

Jeff, that directive comes after the administration slashed funding for global HIV AIDS prevention

and treatment projects earlier this year and moved to eliminate many domestic initiatives as well. In part, because of

those steep cuts, the UN now estimates global funding for HIV has dropped 40% in two years,

and public health leaders argue decades of progress are at risk. To help us take stock of this

current situation, we are joined again

by infectious disease expert Dr. Dmitri Daskalakis. He recently resigned from his leadership role

at the CDC, citing the agency's new policies on vaccines, which he argued will endanger

people's lives. Dr. Daskcalakis, so nice to have you back

on the program. World AIDS Day was created almost 40 years ago at a time when you're probably

not old enough to remember, but stigma in this country around HIV was oppressive. And the activist mantra back then was that silence equals

death. Given that, what do you make of the administration saying, we are not commemorating

World AIDS days? We remain silent on that. It's a really painful question to answer. I mean,

I think at the end of the day, so much progress has happened in HIV, but we're not done yet. And so I think that this really signifies on a very important day of commemoration, the administration not only not pushing the accelerator on ending the HIV epidemic globally,

but actually pumping the brakes. So I think it fits in with so much of what's happened with

the funding and some of the other possibilities of funding that may still happen for the

domestic program. So I think it signals that this is not a priority.

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