“There are people in the government now who don’t really care about you and me, and whether people like us live or die.” Mark Harrington
In February, 2025, TAG’s executive director, Mark Harrington, was interviewed by TAG board member, Karl Schmid, creator and host of +Life Media. Karl and Mark discuss the many shocking — and often mixed — messages currently coming out of the White House.
Below is the written transcript of the interview. It has been slightly edited for clarity and flow.
Transcript
Karl– Welcome to Plus Talk on Plus Life where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. There’s a lot going on in the world at the moment, especially as it relates to HIV. My guest today, Mark Harrington, is the executive director of TAG, Treatment Action Group, and he’s been a professional disruptor since, what, 1988, Mark? Good to see you.
Mark– Good to see you too. – Thanks for having me.
Karl– Mark, let’s dive straight in, because The New York Times came out with a headline the other day, and friend and colleague Peter Staley, longtime activist, commented on the headline. The headline was, “The Trump administration, halts, HIV, drug distributions in poor countries.” Peter wrote, “I never dreamed it would get this bad this fast. Trump has started the clock on murdering 26 million people currently living with HIV.” What’s your reaction to that comment? How realistic is it?
Mark– Well, just to give everyone the background on what actually happened. For the last 20 years, the US has had a program called PEPFAR, the Emergency President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. And that program is responsible for the treatment of about 20 million people living with HIV around the world. And it’s also responsible for providing prevention for pregnant women and to young women and to people that are at risk of getting HIV. That program is the biggest US Health program internationally, and it saved millions and millions of lives. And one of the things that they did over the weekend was the new administration put a freeze for 90 days on all activities by that program. Which means that, like I said, the treatment of 20 million people is at stake. Out of the world’s 40 million people living with HIV, about half of them were supported by this US program. Another 10 million are covered by other programs, including countries themselves, and then 10 million people are not on treatment yet who need to be on treatment.
Karl– I should point out, Mark, PEPFAR was something that was started by a Republican president, George W. Bush, and Trump in his first term, was quite supportive of PEPFAR. You know, what has caused, what do you, what do you make of it? Like why?
Mark– Well there are so many crazy things going on that if you asked me why, I can give you different examples of why I think something might be happening, but this broad attack on, you know, some of the most humanitarian things that the US has ever done are, are really out of character for the American people.
Karl – Yeah. To put it into perspective, PEPFAR is currently providing an antiretroviral treatment to 679,936 pregnant women living with HIV, both for their own health and to prevent transmission to the children. What happens over the course of 90 days if these pregnant women don’t have access to the treatment, what happens to the women? What happens to the babies?
Mark– You can go down the fact sheet and it will tell you how many new, how many babies will be born unnecessarily infected with HIV.
Karl- 135,987 babies could acquire HIV and most of those would go undiagnosed because there is also a stop on infant HIV testing thanks to this.
Mark- Yeah.
Karl– That’s PEPFAR.
Mark- It’s crazy. Yeah, it’s absolutely insane. And it’s linked to a lot of the other activities that they’re doing that are also very cruel and stigmatizing and violent, like the denial of the existence of trans folk, of transgender people. The barring of, of gender diversity in federal programs, in federal language, the freeze on NIH and Centers for Disease Control Scientists communicating with the public, the withdrawal from the World Health Organization.
Karl-You know, you’ve been a professional disruptor. You were part of ACT UP, you know, in, in Fighting for equity for, for people living with HIV. You are an activist at heart, and I invited you on because I said, you know, how can we, you know, encourage people, people are feeling overwhelmed. What, what are some of the things we could do to sort of get the community engaged and say, Hey, listen, you don’t just have to sit and scroll on Instagram and say this is outrageous. You actually can use your voice. You know, you are, you’re famous for, for helping execute ACT UPs, seize control of the FDA demonstration in this moment in time. How can we seize control? How can I, how can my neighbor, how can my, you know, the person I talk to when I go to the supermarket and they check out my groceries and we’re all saying, this is terrible. What can we do, mark? What can we do to seize control, and get on top of this?
Mark– Well, I, I think one, one of the things that we learned from ACT UP in the eighties is that we can organize, we can get together, we can disrupt government, we can disrupt traffic, we can get arrested. We can appeal to individuals who are in government, both within the executive branch, but also in the state and local governments and also in Congress and their staffers. We can ask for help. We can talk through the media like we’re doing right now. We can be open about, I’m HIV positive, right? I’ve been living with HIV since 1985. I’ve been on treatment for HIV since 1996. Those treatments would only have, wouldn’t have even happened as quickly if it wasn’t for groups like ACT UP. And so this is a long game. We’ve been fighting this pandemic since the eighties when Reagan was president, when it was a very homophobic administration. It was doing a lot of the same things that they’re doing today, anti-abortion, anti-trans, anti-gay, et cetera. But it’s a long game and we have to stick together and we have to fight for those people who are being endangered right now. And that means both people domestically and the people internationally in the PEPFAR programs. And it also means the migrants, it means the trans people and all of our allies and work together across different lines to make sure that we’re strong enough that we can turn this thing around.
Karl– As you said, you know, we, this is a long game and you’ve been, you’ve been fighting it and you’ve been through this hate and discrimination now for 40 odd years, but what’s different this time? Is there something different that, that, that is alarmingly different, you know, now compared to then with the hate? Or the anger.
Mark– No, I don’t think so, I don’t think hate or the anger are that different. I do think that there are people that are in the government now that don’t really care about you and me, and whether people that are like us live or die. And the same with the people in, in, in PEPFAR countries. And the same with people in Ryan White. The thing that’s different is the rank illegality of what they’re doing and the, and, and unconstitutional nature of what they’re doing. The Constitution is very clear that Congress decides what to spend the money on and the executive branch go, you know, and spend it. They do not get to say, no, I don’t like this program. Congress already passed the budget.
Karl– You know, we’ve heard this administration and its leader talk about his, their love for tough guys and their lack of, you know, they sort of thrive on fear and scaring people. I think there are a lot of people who are feeling quite fearful. How can we stay fearless? And why is that important?
Mark– Well, I think that we need to, we need to think of some other emotions besides fear. I don’t know if it’s possible to be completely fearless. It might be a little psycho to not be worried about what could happen. But think about the other emotions of what, what has brought us together over all these years? It’s our shared love and compassion and empathy for our communities that are affected by these diseases like HIV. And because of our love and compassion, we got together and we, you know, formed groups like ACT UP and then later TAG and so on. And those groups have made history by continuously fighting to advance the treatments and research and prevention to end the epidemic. And so one thing that’s really different, Karl, is it, you know, back in the eighties there was nothing, or there was like a AZT, single pill didn’t work, didn’t help very long, had side effects. Now we have all this incredible science after all these 40 years of research. We have one pill once a day for people living with HIV. We have pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. We have treatments and preventions for all of the opportunistic infections and complications in related other areas like, like TB or hepatitis C. We have cures and we have new vaccines that are coming through the pipeline and we can’t, they could stop the funding, but they can’t put the knowledge away that we know that these medications work. Domestically, unfortunately, I fear that we’re gonna have to solve this ourselves.
Karl– And, and that’s why the work that organizations like TAG Treatment Action Group do are so vital and so important. As I mentioned at the top, you’re the executive director of TAG. How does what Trump is doing and his administration is doing with freezes and, and you know, the impact of what they do in Sub-Saharan Africa, how does that directly affect, affect the work that Treatment Action group does?
Mark – Well, we’re somewhat shielded from some of the immediate effects due to the fact that we’re mostly an activist organization, right? So we don’t get CDC funding to open clinics or to test people or to give out medications. So we have to make it clear, you know, what ACT UP did in the early days was we got through to the American people. And this time we’re gonna have to do the same exact thing — to get through to the American people because a lot of the people that voted for, for the people that are in power now, they, they did not say, oh, we’re gonna about PEPFAR and we’re gonna stop funding state Medicaid, and we’re gonna take away your grants and we’re gonna close your state health. That’s not what they said. So anyway, we’ve got our work cut out for us, Karl,
Karl– We do, if someone is a younger person who wasn’t even alive during the Reagan administration and is so used to sort of going, okay, well that was then this is now, but I want to get involved. I want to act up, I want to disrupt. What kind of advice would you have for them?
Mark – Act. Ask around, find out what’s going on in your community. Do something, go somewhere physical, be with other people in a room, make some plans. Don’t do everything on Zoom or electronically because it sometimes provides the illusion that you’re doing a lot of things together, but then you log off and then poof. You know? So a lot of times for political and social change, you’ve gotta like get outta the apartment and go do something. And so . . .
Karl– Yeah, get out there, get your hands dirty. If there’s one thing you really want people to be aware of and really have at the front of their mind right now, what do you want them to be focused on? What do you want people to be aware of?
Mark– I want them to be aware that they, everyone has a right to treatment for any kind of health condition that they may have or for prevention, for anything that they may be at risk of getting. And that’s a human right. And that thousands and thousands and thousands of people with AIDS struggled and died so that we could have these treatments. And so people are gonna have to fight if we want to keep access to the things that we deserve.
Karl– Yeah, and, and as you have proven and your colleagues around the world, and you’ve proven many, many times, you’ve shown that regular people can make a huge impact on research and on policy. Mark Harrington from Treatment Action Group. Thank you for making the time. I know it’s crazy busy for you. I really appreciate it.
Mark– Thank you so much Karll. See you, looking forward to seeing you soon.
Karl– We’ll see you soon. That is gonna do it for this episode of Plus Talk. If you want more information or you wanna learn more about Treatment Action Group, all the information will be there in the post and we’ll put the website up there as well. Thanks for making the time. Remember, you can like, follow and share. We’re across all your favorite social platforms at Plus Life Media. Until next time, be nice to one another and get out there and act up a little.