Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson, right, and NMAC CEO Harold Phillips speak at the 2025 U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS in D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is pushing forward a proposed rule that would make it not only easier for people with HIV in need to get organ transplants from HIV-positive donors, but also make it a priority where there was often a barrier.
The Washington Blade sat down with people familiar with this topic — from former heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to HIV activists and to the first HIV-positive person to donate an organ — about what this proposed change could mean.
HIV is a virus that attacks the body’s immune system, particularly targeting the body’s T-cells, which makes it harder to fight off infection and disease. If left untreated, HIV can become AIDS. Without treatment, AIDS can lead to death within a few months or years. The virus is spread through direct contact with bodily fluids — often through sex, unclean needles, or from mother to baby during pregnancy.
According to HIV.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. were living with HIV in 2022. Of those 1.2 million, 13 percent don’t know they have it.
The virus disproportionately impacts men who have sex with men and people of color.
The CDC’s statistics show men are most affected, making up almost 80 percent of diagnoses, with gay and bisexual men accounting for the majority. Racial disparities also are present — Black people make up 38 percent of diagnoses. The World Health Organization estimates that around 44.1 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses globally as of 2024.
Since the virus was first detected 45 years ago, scientists have been working on ways to treat and prevent its spread. In 1987, the first breakthrough in fighting HIV came as the U.S. approved the first HIV medication, AZT — marking the beginning of antiretroviral therapy. This medicine — and later descendants of it, like today’s widely prescribed Biktarvy — stop the HIV virus from reproducing and allow the body to keep its T-cells.
Then in 2012, another big step toward minimizing the scope of the potentially fatal disease came as the CDC approved the first HIV prevention medication, Truvada, more commonly known as PrEP. As of 2024, nearly 600,000 people in the U.S. are using PrEP, according to AIDSVu, which uses data from Gilead Sciences (manufacturers of Truvada and Biktarvy) and is compiled by researchers at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
The following year, in 2013, the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act was signed into law, enabling the use of organs from HIV-positive donors for transplants into HIV-positive recipients, overturning a 1988 ban.
There are an estimated 123,000 people waiting for organ transplants in the U.S. The number of HIV-positive people on that list is estimated to be smaller, harder to precisely quantify, but they are still in dire need.
A study from the New England Journal of Medicine, published in 2024, analyzed the outcomes of 198 kidney transplantations to people with HIV at 26 medical centers across the U.S. from 2018 to 2021.
Results from the study showed that for kidney transplants performed using organs from 99 donors with HIV and 99 without HIV, one-year survival rates for HIV-positive recipients were nearly identical (94 percent and 95 percent, respectively). Three-year survival rates were also similar (85 percent and 87 percent). Organ rejection rates were also numerically on par after three years (21 percent and 24 percent). Other measures for surgical outcomes, including the number of side effects that occurred, were also roughly the same for both groups.
This shows that, overall, HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive transplants are nearly identical in outcome to transplants between HIV-negative donors and recipients.
Where we are now
Now in 2026, CMS is pushing past the clinical trial testing phase it has been in, making HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive organ transplants more widespread and more accessible.
Adrian Shanker, the former deputy assistant secretary for health policy and senior advisor on LGBTQ health equity at HHS, explained to the Blade that the HOPE Act was a step in the right direction, but this policy change from CMS will expand the ability to help HIV-positive patients in need.
“The original HOPE Act asked for scientific research,” Shanker explained. “There were 10 years of clinical trials. The Biden administration promulgated a rule that removed clinical trial requirements for kidney and liver transplants between people living with HIV. This proposed rule is further implementation on the CMS side with the organ procurement organizations to ensure they’re carrying out the stated intent of the HOPE Act law. It’s building on consensus that has existed through multiple administrations.”
The proposed change would go into effect on July 1, and, according to Shanker, would help everyone in need of an organ — not just HIV-positive people.
“People living with HIV, their ability to receive organs from other people living with HIV in a more streamlined way means that the overall organ waitlist is sped up as well,” he added. “So it benefits everyone on the waitlist.”
Shanker, who was also a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, spoke about how this is a rare moment of bipartisanship.
“There’s no secret that the Trump administration has been quite adversarial to LGBTQI plus health, and to the health of people living with HIV/HIV prevention resources as well … From destabilizing PEPFAR to shutting down one of the primary implementation partners, which is USAID, to firing almost the entire staff of the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV Policy at HHS … But what this is is a glimmer of hope that we can have bipartisan solutions that improve quality of life for people living with HIV.”
Harold Phillips, the CEO of NMAC, a national HIV/AIDS organization that pushes policy education and public engagement to end the HIV epidemic, and an HIV-positive American, sees this as a huge gain for the HIV-positive community.
“For a number of years, we were excluded from that pool of potential donors,” Phillips said. “Many people living with HIV were excluded from being able to get organ transplants. So this opens up that door. This is a positive step forward that will help save lives.”
That “open door,” Phillips said, does more than just provide life-saving organs to people in the most need. It provides a sense of being able to support their community.
“I remember when I was no longer able to check that box on my driver’s license,” Phillips recalled during his interview with the Blade. “I remember what that meant — that my organs might not be able to save a life. The potential that now they could is really exciting for me.”
“To think about people living with HIV donating their organs to other people living with HIV and helping extend their health and well-being — that’s an exciting moment in our history. It reinforces that HIV is not a death sentence anymore.”
Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matt Rose also sat down with the Blade to explain the realities of HIV-positive people in the U.S. right now who are looking for a transplant.
“If you’re HIV positive and on the waitlist for an organ right now, your chance of getting one is slim to nil,” Rose said. “This at least gives you a real shot.”
He went on to explain that while the HOPE Act started to move in the right direction, it hasn’t done enough for HIV-positive people in dire need.
“This bill [HOPE] was supposed to fix that — and it never really has. But every administration, we keep chipping away at the next hurdle,” he said. “This latest move will drastically expand the ability for someone who is HIV positive to donate an organ.”
That slow chipping away, in addition to the non-stop trials being done to prove the efficacy and ability for HIV-positive people’s bodies to accept organ donation, is part of the broader push to normalize this practice and remove outdated restrictions.
Shanker elaborated, explaining all that time was necessary to figure out the efficacy of HIV-positive-to-HIV-positive organ transplants but now that the data has been collected — its time to expand the availability.
“There were over a decade of clinical trials between the original HOPE Act law being signed by President Obama and our rule being promulgated at the end of the Biden administration. It was to allow those clinical trials to run their course,” Shanker said.
Nina Martinez is the first HIV-positive person to donate an organ to another person with HIV.
She explained that the stigma and lack of understanding from the general public is another hurdle that those working to improve the quality of life for people living with HIV have to deal with.
“People don’t generally understand that treatment works,” Martinez said, who became the first person to undergo HIV-positive organ donation in 2019. “When you have access to antiretroviral therapy, it lowers the virus in your bloodstream to levels so low that lab tests can’t detect it. Clinically, that correlates to good health and an inability to transmit HIV sexually. I was healthy enough to pass the same evaluation as any other living donor without HIV.”
She continued explaining:
“Just by having a diagnosis of HIV, they’re labeling donors as medically complex, and that’s not accurate. Every donor with HIV has to pass the same evaluation as donors without HIV,” she said. “If someone passes that evaluation and still isn’t allowed to donate, that’s discrimination. If a patient is willing to accept that organ and you block it because of preconceived notions, you’re denying someone care based on disability. That runs counter to basic fairness.”
When asked about her decision to become a donor and what message she hopes it sends, Martinez emphasized that the choice should remain personal.
“I didn’t undertake this endeavor to say that people with HIV should donate. This is a community that’s been through a lot and has contributed to science — we have served. But for people who wanted a way to leave a legacy, and that is what I wanted, they should be supported in that. There shouldn’t be arcane scientific perceptions and myths getting in the way of that.”
National Donor Day, which raises awareness of organ donation, is on Feb. 14. To become an organ donor, visit registerme.org.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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