Two top Democrats are demanding answers from Secretary of State Marco Rubio over missing data about a flagship U.S. global health program, warning the gap could be hiding setbacks in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

The ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, and her House counterpart, Rep. Gregory Meeks, accused the State Department of withholding most of its fiscal 2025 data for the decades-old President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.



“This failure to maintain accurate data was entirely avoidable,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter Monday obtained by NOTUS.

Though the State Department typically releases quarterly data on the program, last month it only released fourth-quarter data, citing “reporting and implementation challenges.” That’s likely linked to PEPFAR being scrambled when the Trump administration launched a broad freeze on foreign aid in early 2025.

Experts have said there’s a broader trend of data disappearing under the Trump administration. NOTUS this year verified dozens of instances of lapsed federal data to capture the range of information that is no longer being collected, has been paused or is not available to the public.

Shaheen and Meeks dismissed the State Department’s explanation, arguing lawmakers need the incomplete data to hold the department accountable. They cited the preliminary data to point to “substantial disruptions” in HIV services, including declines in testing, diagnoses, treatment, infant care and the use of a preventative medicine, PreP.

The lawmakers are also pressing for more detailed reporting, including data broken down by age, sex and location to get a picture of whether services are reaching the populations most at risk.

PEPFAR has been credited with saving 26 million lives. Shaheen and Meeks argued the program was on track to end HIV/AIDS by 2030, thanks to data collection, analysis, and dissemination efforts.

“Without this understanding, we risk squandering the U.S.’s legacy of leading the worldwide charge to eradicate HIV/AIDS and save lives,” they wrote.

Though Trump’s handling of PEPFAR has led to some tension within the Republican Party, the administration has framed its efforts as fixing waste and inefficiencies in global health programs. The State Department said its fourth-quarter data showed it helped more than 20 million people living with HIV in more than 50 countries.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter from Shaheen and Meeks.