Millions Will Die Unless US Aid Money is Replaced
A dire warning from the UN.
AP (“The UN warns millions will die by 2029 if US funding for HIV programs isn’t replaced“):
Years of American-led investment into AIDS programs has reduced the number of people killed by the disease to the lowest levels seen in more than three decades and provided life-saving medicines for some of the world’s most vulnerable.
But in the last six months, the sudden withdrawal of U.S. money has caused a “systemic shock,” U.N. officials warned, adding that if the funding isn’t replaced, it could lead to more than 4 million AIDS-related deaths and 6 million more HIV infections by 2029.
A new UNAIDS report released Thursday said the funding losses have “already destabilized supply chains, led to the closure of health facilities, left thousands of health clinics without staff, set back prevention programs, disrupted HIV testing efforts and forced many community organizations to reduce or halt their HIV activities.”
[…]
The $4 billion that the United States pledged for the global HIV response for 2025 disappeared virtually overnight in January, when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered that all foreign aid be suspended and later moved to shutter the U.S. AID agency.
Andrew Hill, an HIV expert at the University of Liverpool who is not connected to the United Nations, said that while Trump is entitled to spend U.S. money as he sees fit, “any responsible government would have given advance warning so countries could plan,” instead of stranding patients in Africa where clinics were closed overnight.
The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was launched in 2003 by U.S. President George W. Bush, the biggest-ever commitment by any country focused on a single disease.
[…]
Experts also fear another significant loss — data.
The U.S. paid for most HIV surveillance in African countries, including hospital, patient and electronic records, all of which has now abruptly ceased, according to Dr. Chris Beyrer, director of the Global Health Institute at Duke University.
“Without reliable data about how HIV is spreading, it will be incredibly hard to stop it,” he said.
Bush will, almost certainly, be most remembered for launching the Global War on Terror and, especially, the Iraq War. But PEPFAR and the Millennium Challenge Corporation are arguably his most impactful contributions. PEPFAR alone has saved an estimated 26 million lives, and doubtless saved multiples of that from requiring HIV treatment.
Four billion dollars is a drop in the bucket for a country that spends $7 trillion a year. It’s literally less than a rounding error. A million-plus saved lives a year is a pretty damn good return on that investment.
Realistically, that money isn’t going to be replaced. If anything, US backsliding will give others license to follow suit.
Unless those people who are dying are Donald J. Trump, he doesn’t care.
In addition to the needless suffering, we have suffered a huge loss of cheap soft-power, and Congress just sits there like a potted plant.
Where the hell is George W. Bush? He’s not dead, why isn’t he speaking up?
MAGA voted for tax cuts and to let these people die.
Your pro-life party in action.
I always laugh heartily when it’s mentioned that the most enduring accomplishment of w was pepfar. Like, all he did was sign a document to allow it to happen. How amazing. Should we thank him for doing the obvious because maybe his political base could give a shit about those people, but wow, he bucked his party and saved lives with a US initiative. That’s literally the least he could do, but he’s “remembered” for that “accomplishment.” Give me a break. A dem would do that in heartbeat and it would never be mentioned again.
…. is 36 trillion dollars in debt. That’s “approximately $107,227 per U.S. citizen” since those in the country illegally are a net cost to the US taxpayer. And the country is facing the Baby Boomer Social Security bubble.
But, no worries, the Millennials, Gen Z and Alpha will pay for the Gen X/Boomer/Silent largess.
Of course, the US could save a lot of money if they diverted the payments to keep the UN in NYC to productive uses instead of parties for UN bureaucrats. Time to move the UN to somewhere more central to the nations of the world and population. Mogadishu could use an injection of capital and persistent spending of the UN Hq delegates and bureaucrats.
@Michael Reynolds: An excellent question.
@clarkontheweekend: And yet the alternative is Trump cutting off the aid. I have no need to defend W, but let’s not ignore that one of these things is not like the other.
@JKB: Shorter version of JKB: “let them die.”
I would add, I might take such bleating about the debt serious if the OBBB didn’t cut taxes for very wealthy people in route to adding substantially to the debt.
There’s a TZ ep, in one of the modern remakes, about a mysterious man who gives a couple a box with one button. He explains they can keep the box for a day. If they press the button, someone will die. Someone they don’t know. And they’ll be paid one million dollars.
The couple agonizes and argues over pressing the button. Maybe it will be someone terminally ill and in great pain who wants to end their life. Maybe it’s a hoax. Things like that, going late into the night. In the end they press the button, and the next morning the man shows up, takes the box, and pays them a million. He confirms someone did die, someone they don’t know*.
IMO, if you ran the thought experiment with the GQP base, but offering a penny rather than a million dollars, and saying the person who’d die would be someone you have no reason to care about, 99% of them would press the button at once.
It’s not the money, it’s the cruelty inflicted on people they don’t like.
*SPOILER ALERT.
They ask what happens next. The man says the box will be reset and given to someone else. Someone they don’t know.
@JKB: So explain why your cult leader just put us another $5T in debt, when you count the added interest. Justify your continued support if you are, in fact, so concerned about our debt? Democrats are the only ones who have reduced deficit spending. Why don’t you support THEIR efforts?
Oh, and this is just plain false.
If you have to lie to make your point, then you don’t really have a point worth making.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@JKB:
He’s another hit-and-run commenter who should take Fortune’s exit strategy to heart.
@JKB: I would take your concerns about the deficit more seriously if the BBB hadn’t included a giant tax cut. I would take it more seriously if the BBB hadn’t included giant funding increases for immigration ($150 billion).
Also, you don’t seem to understand scale, even though James mentioned it. Cutting PEPFAR does pretty much nothing at all toward reducing the debt. It is approximately 0.05% of annual expenditure. One cannot see that as a visible difference.
This is a pattern of behavior among Republican legislators that goes back to Reagan. They will cut taxes when they have power (and a Republican is in the White House) and complain about the debt (and try to legislate spending cuts) when they aren’t. Where were all the deficit hawks on July 1-4? At this point, complaints about the debt are simply not credible.
I’m assuming the statement that best matches your sentiment is “Those people aren’t our problem” (Which is pretty much what the Kerr County commissioners said in public meetings regarding flood-warning systems.) It’s uglier, but at least its honest.
@Steven L. Taylor: Another gem from the Lesser Bush administration: “Reagan showed that deficits don’t matter.” Dick Cheney. Now our occaisional punching bag cites the deficit. Isn’t it cute!
@JKB: neat. And your boi just added a bunch more to it.
Btw. He had sex with kids on Epstein Island.
Lots of times.
@clarkontheweekend: I recall at the time people observed the biggest donor industry to W had been pharma, who stood to profit from PEPFAR.
@JKB:
That’s heavily debated, so I wouldn’t take JKB’s word for it. Especially considering the rest of his incoherent argument, which I’m guessing boils down to: “I have mine.”
Dead children are not a bug for MAGA, they’re a feature. Whether it’s school shootings or childhood diseases or war, empathy is not something they are capable of. They’re high on self-pity and anger, conflating it with masculinity.
There’s a discussion on the open thread on old TV series. It occurred to me that rather than the JKBs of the world idolizing pseudo-macho hucksters, they could watch The Rifleman, for example. Definitely an alpha – had a cool rifle and in the opening he’s basically shooting from the dick – but also empathetic and siding with the underdogs. And he was a good single father, quiet and honest and straightforward. All the things men are supposed to be, things which have evidently been forgotten.
Complaints about the debt/deficit by conservatives should be considered bogus since all they do is increase it. That aside, I dont think it’s the end of the world if we decide to stop funding PEPFAR but the way it was done was awful. It should have been announced we were going to stop and some time should have been allowed to find alternative funding. It wasn’t an emergency.
Steve
@Tony W: “he doesn’t care”
Which we knew. Nor does Musk, which we might’ve known based in part on his relatively meager and apparently self-serving philanthropy. Same for Rubio, because…well, he gave up his senate seat to be a member of this confederation.
@JKB:
The deficit and accumulating debt is a problem?
So, either act seriously about either revenue, or expenditure, or both.
The US has, since WW2, leveraged international assistance funding into a massive economic and diplomatic advantage for the US.
Not to mention the humanitarian aspects: saving lives is generally seen as a good thing.
And so is assisting economic development at a relatively small cost.
The problem with MAGA, and similar “populist Right” movements elsewhere, both nationally and internationally, is resentment based on an unshakeable conviction that the “undeserving” are getting something sweet out of their money.
And that the “Reds” are lurking under the beds.
@JKB:
It’s a civil infraction, not a criminal infraction, so the undocumented are here uncivilly, not illegally.
They also pay a lot of taxes and get no benefits, so I don’t see how they are a net cost. This goes particularly for Social Security, and really helps the whole Boomer thing.
That said, I don’t know if there are updated numbers that include the new ICE budget, but I think that’s a service they would happily opt out of.
Also, you would need to factor in the lower cost of goods, caused by cheaper (and more efficient) workers.