"An absolute disaster": Musk's assault on USAID blamed for spread of HIV among newborns
SalonDespite President Donald Trump's assurances that "lifesaving" programs will be exempt from a freeze on foreign aid, personnel from Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency — who effectively control the United States Agency for International Development — are still blocking assistance aimed at preventing the spread of HIV. Did that instead.” The Trump administration granted an “emergency humanitarian waiver” to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a global health program founded by former President George W. Bush that has saved an estimated 26 million lives since 2003 and is now funding care for 20 million people with HIV worldwide. But several USAID workers and contractors told Wired that it is still being fed to Musk's proverbial wood chipper, in large part because the people working on HIV/AIDS relief have been cut off from their work emails and agency systems. “When a baby is born, you do an early infant diagnostic test, and if it comes back positive, you can blitz them with retrovirals, but you can’t do that if you don’t have retrovirals,” another USAID worker said.
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