Rachel Feltman: For American scientific‘s Science quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
Last Friday The US Department of State has formally reported congress Intentions to disassemble international development or USAID US agency. This movement is not surprising, as the USAID has attracted the attention of the US DOGE service in Elon Musk as the current administration took office.
While a USAID program is folded in the state department, until July 1, it is clear that the US Federal government is back in the main ways of USAID. To name a single example, The administration wants to interrupt Sagiri support is an immunization program that has saved the life of 19 million in the last 25 million children’s estimates, New York Times.
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Usacid is a massive agency that offers all kinds of support from around the world, so the effects of its solution are wide and complex. Here is to talk to us, Tanya Lewis is a high medical editor of health and medicine American scientific.
Tanya, thank you today for coming to talk to us.
Lewis asked: Yes, thank you for being me.
Feltman: So start, what is that?
Lewis: So USAID is an agency for international development. Basically, President John F. Kennedy is the organization created in the 60s. The main goal was to support other countries. And this takes health care and financial support and other things. But here we will focus on basic effects.
Feltman: And what happened for their funding?
Lewis: So when Donald Trump took in January, he basically gave the executive request basically, which would have a frost in every USAID contract. And during that time they immediately started steaming agencies. As we all know, Elon Musk has been at the forefront of this effort to reduce costs throughout the government, and it basically established or finished thousands of employee contracts.
Feltman: Wow, and you recently wrote All this for that American scientific, And one thing I really appreciated is that you bring all this research on the influence of USAID, and we really know what a lot of efforts they have had. Could you tell you about that?
Lewis: Yes, so you know, you know, you don’t have to take my word to do so, because it seems to study the impact of that funding. For example, William Weiss, William Weiss, William Weiss, Hopkins Bloomberg School Professor of Public School, who was a consultant in the global US Health Office.
He and his colleagues published the study in the magazine Population health metric, This had the influence of USAID funding under the influence of different countries and what they did, they wanted to look at countries that received a kind of average funding. Countries with no financing in terms of global support must be impossible, therefore, comparing a group of countries that have received many funding received. It was about the effect of children under 5 years, and many support are basic, you know that children’s health needs, so vaccines, antibiotics, you know the basic interventions that can save life and do not cost a lot of money.
Because the effects of USAID financing really said, as I said, as I said, compared a group of countries that have not received a group of “synthetic control” basically, essentially not receiving much funding from USAID. When they compared these two groups, the average average funding received was 1,000 less births, among children under 5, were essentially 2000 and 2016. And then the greater the benefit basically. So during that time 3 million children are working approximately.
Feltman: Wow, and did the researchers look at the effects on any other team?
Lewis: Yes, therefore, atul Gawande, the former head of USAIDE health efforts and his colleagues. And this study looked at the reproductive-older women, and if they compared people who did not receive the funding of USAID, the funded countries had 0.8 fewer deaths for each of the prolonged women of many women. And that will return about about a million deaths over time.
Feltman: Wow.
Lewis: Yes, it is therefore quite significant, you know, influence, even in these adult women.
Feltman: Yes, that’s a tremendous effect, and, and, and, of course, the idea of all the programs that are leaking is quite disturbing, but there are funding that went so well. Do we know how to influence funding cuts so far?
Lewis: Yes, it’s a great question, and I think it’s almost certainly that we will see these impacts over time, it will probably take a little time to document them all. But we know that such funding does not benefit from childhood health and duration; This financing is also very important to treat malaria, such as the tremendous cause of death as well all over the world. It is also essential for tuberculosis treatments, which I think you just made a passage.
Feltman: Yes, yes, and really, when we were talking About the new book about John Green Tuberculosis, He mentioned that interruptions in a very long antibiotic process for treating tuberculosis, which created the risk of TV that are resistant to itself and antibiotics. So as always always happens, it is not only a humanitarian approach; How is it really affecting global public health risks.
Lewis: Yes, completely, and I mean, as we learned with Covid, these diseases are not left in a single place in a country. In the end, Americans are also things to influence.
To return to some influences, I think, one of the most destructive effects of loss of USAID will be in the treatment of HIV and AIDS. We have effective drugs for this virus, but they need to reach people. Therefore, USAID is funded by Pepfar, which is the Emergency Plan of AIDS relief, which began by George W. Bush. And since it has been funded in every conference, this is the issue of bipartisan, and Americans generally support foreign support, so it is very destructive that all these programs are just out of these rugs.
Feltman: So these days there are many businesses and confusion with many funding policies. And on March 5, the Supreme Court promised that the Trump Administration could not freeze, $ 2 billion for foreign support. What is the dealing with it? Is it really stopped?
Lewis: Yes, therefore, it is an important resolution, but what it basically says is to pay pay payments to their contractors. So basically you know, it will help you fix debts that already owe, but it will not necessarily continue to move forward in the USAID program.
We will have to wait and see that we should see what the courts say about it. But you know, that is, we are seeing cases that come out about these issues. For now, USAID may be able to pay some contractors that already work, but no warranty will be progressed by any of these programs.
Feltman: What other influence would we see when USAIDEN financing disappears?
Lewis: Yes, as we all know, it is a key thing to the thing that we need human health, you know, to succeed in life. If you like it, you can’t be unhealthy, you can’t get an education, you can’t succeed in your career, you know, and there are all these effects. So if thousands or millions do not have access to vaccines, for example, they could develop weak diseases such as polio potentially, so these effects prevent deaths.
And as we have seen, it approaches what is happening in these particular countries, you are talking about global geopolitical stability, right? We like a serious disease in a country and there will be no help or support for people who explode or violence, so it affects us to safety and is something that affects us the general international relations. So the care of basic human life is just a lot of reasons to care about it.
Feltman: Tanya, thank you for coming to talk through that, and we will definitely keep looking at the future of your future stories.
Lewis: Yes, thank you for being me.
Feltman: That’s the episode of today. We will return with our regular news rounding on Monday.
Science quickly Rachel Feltman produces me with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff Delviscio. This passage edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Books and Aaron Shattuck Fact-Check our show. Our music topic was completed by Smith. Subscribe American scientific Update and deep science for more news.
For Scientific American, This is Rachel Feltman. Have a good weekend!
