Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn't True. [View all]
Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isnt True.
Roda Abdullay, 14, holds her 8-month-old brother who is suffering from malnutrition.
By Nicholas Kristof
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/opinion/foreign-aid-cuts-impact.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4E4.H8Lx.GD39rucUfloD&smid=url-share
"SNIP............
As the worlds richest men slash American aid for the worlds poorest children, they insist that all is well. No one has died as a result of a brief pause to do a sanity check on foreign aid funding, Elon Musk said. No one.
That is not true. In South Sudan, one of the worlds poorest countries, the efforts by Musk and President Trump are already leading children to die.
Peter Donde was a 10-year-old infected with H.I.V. from his mother during childbirth. But American aid kept Peter strong even as his parents died from AIDS. A program started by President George W. Bush called PEPFAR saved 26 million lives from AIDS, and one was Peters.
Under PEPFAR, an outreach health worker ensured that Peter and other AIDS orphans got their medicines. Then in January, Trump and Musk effectively shuttered the U.S. Agency for International Development, perhaps illegally, and that PEPFAR outreach program ended. Orphans were on their own.
...........SNIP"