14 million lives could be lost due to Trump’s USAID cuts : Goats and Soda : NPR

On April 24, pharmacist Kenyan Joseph Njer Airo inspected boxes of antiretroviral drugs labeled “USAID”, from the last donation before the financing cuts.

Michel Lunanga / Via Getty Images

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Michel Lunanga / Via Getty Images

The Trump administration officially closes the United States agency for international development today, after Cancellation of 83% of its programs earlier this year.

The administration claims that the agency has misused billions of funds and “has little to show Since the end of the Cold War. “”

This argument comes up against a new study published Monday in the medical journal, The Lancet. The study believes that USAID programs have saved more than 90 million lives Over the past two decades. The researchers also believe that if the current cuts continue until 2030, 14 million people who could have lived otherwise could die.

“East [USAID] Good use of resources? We found that the average taxpayer contributed about 18 cents a day to the USAID, “said James Macinkoresearcher in health policy at the UCLA and co-author of the study. “For this small amount, we were able to translate this by saving up to 90 million dead worldwide.”

Since the USAID was formed in 1961, he funded a wide range of programs, to give school lunches to children in Haiti to distribute HIV drugs across sub -Saharan Africa. While many studies have analyzed narrower slices of the USAID portfolio, including maternal mortality And child healthNo research evaluated by peers had tried to take stock of the overall impact of the agency.

While the Trump administration was starting to reduce programs, Macinko and researchers from Europe, South America and Africa got to work by assessing exactly what was the impact of the USAID.

“What we really tried to shoot is that the financing of the USAID influenced a set of results?” said Macinko. “We were most interested in looking at mortality, really quantifying the impact of these investments.”

The team analyzed the demographic and death data of 133 different countries which received aid between 2001 and 2021. By comparing deaths in all countries which received weak, means and high amounts of help from USAID – while taking into account the differences in population, income, education and other non -help factors – the team was able to estimate the human effects of this aid.

And these effects were substantial. They found that high levels of funding from USAID were associated with a 15% reduction in deaths of any cause, at all ages. For children under the age of five, the percentage has more than doubled at 32%.

“Once you have translated this 15% reduction in number of lives, it actually represents 91 million deaths avoided,” explains Macinko. “When we saw this number, we were indeed surprised.”

The search in data also revealed that USAID programs were associated with the greatest death reductions HIV / AIDSmalaria, and Neglected tropical diseases Like dengue or chikungunya. Smaller, but still statistically significant reductions in mortality have been observed for tuberculosis, nutritional deficiencies, diarrheal diseases, maternal and perinatal conditions and lower respiratory infections.

The sudden and steep cuts from the Trump administration with foreign aid interrupted most USAID programs. To estimate how many lives could be affected by the agency’s dismantling in the future, the researchers used what they had learned in retrospective analysis to estimate the number of avoidable deaths if the current USAID cuts become permanent. If this happens, they believe that somewhere between 8 and 19 million people could die, including 4.5 million children, by 2030.

“Even if you take the most conservative estimate, these are always very important in terms of lost lives,” explains Macinko.

A head of the State Department who informed journalists said that “these types of studies are based on incorrect assumptions about what Secretary Rubio intends to do and has done foreign help. I think it has been very clear that many rescue work that we will continue and will be made more effective.”

Overall, the study fills a major gap in the supply of a “view of birds of birds” of the impact of the USAID, says Brooke NicholsA modeling maker of infectious diseases at the University of Boston which was not involved in the study.

“I like their statistical approach, it was really well done and robust,” she said, noting that the analysis of the impact of so many programs in so many countries is difficult. Death data is not perfect in many countries, which adds a certain uncertainty.

While USAID is often the largest donor of foreign aid, other nations and organizations also contribute. If the contributions of other groups are correlated with the financing of the USAID in a particular country, it could be difficult to analyze the specific impact of the USAID, she says. However, she praises the speed of the study.

“The value of retrospective work is useful to show the world what can be done with a concerted effort, bipartite support … to show how much you can have,” she said.

Putting figures for life that could be lost if funding is not restored does something very important, she said. It highlights the costs that political decisions can have on human life.