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| Source: damascenegallery.com |
I have just learned the following "bad news" from a newly published article by the Associated Press:
"Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organization, created by President John F. Kennedy as a peaceful way of promoting U.S. national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad."
The administration has ordered USAID absorbed into the State Department on Tuesday.
I wrote about the tragic deaths that will result around the world, primarily among children, from defunding USAID in a reflection on June 6, entitled, "Too Many Children are Suffering Avoidable Starvation and Death." The data referred to then - as disturbing as it was - is now dwarfed by the anticipated deaths that now threaten men women and children throughout the world. I now quote an article written by Aria Bendex and printed on the "health news" page from NBC News today: "USAID cuts could lead to 14 Million deaths over the next five years, researches say:"
"The analysis found that, from 2001 through 2021, USAID-funded programs prevented nearly 92 million deaths across 133 countries, including more than 25 million deaths from HIV/AIDS, around 11 million from diarrheal diseases, 8 million from malaria and nearly 5 million from tuberculosis."
"The analysis, done by a team of international researchers from Spain, Brazil, Mozambique and the United States, estimated the impact of the 83% funding cuts, assuming they remain through 2030. Of the more than 14 million deaths forecast, around 4.5 million would be among children under 5, the authors found.
“The numbers are striking, but we are not the only group that did this kind of analysis,” said Davide Rasella, a research professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, who coordinated the study. Other research groups, he said, “came up with similar magnitudes — millions and millions of deaths that will be caused by the defunding of USAID".”
"Amira Albert Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, said the way the funding was terminated is partly responsible for the high number of predicted deaths:
“For better or for worse, some of the USAID-funded clinics in some areas, they were the main source of care,” she said. “If you wanted to reduce USAID funding, it could have been done in a more gradual manner, instead of this sudden — and really, in a lot of places, overnight — shuttering of clinics".”
It seem painfully obvious that so much of this suffering and death could have been avoided by more careful research and planning, and a humanitarian impulse - together with American "soft power" that was behind these life-saving programs going back to the 1960s. Allowing for compassion - a decisive Christian response - in federal government decisions does not violate the separation of Church and State. It actually makes us a better nation. As Orthodox Christians, it is the Gospel and the "mind of Christ" that we need to manifest when examine policies and principles.
I would like to include former president George Bush's comments to disheartened staffers who will be relieved of their positions now: “You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work — and that is your good heart,’’ Bush told USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you," he said.
Fr. Steven
