Gabrielle Emmanuel
Appearances
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
Yes. So in the past, USAID dollars have gone to over 170 countries. So we are talking all over the world here. And much of that spending was through the US Agency for International Development, USAID. A lot of that investment was in global health. In fact, the US has been the top global health donor worldwide for a while.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
So the thinking historically has been that helping other countries creates goodwill. It builds relationships. It stabilizes countries so that they don't turn to our adversaries like Russia, China, Iran for support. It also reduces migration. It's one of the big reasons people flee is lack of food, lack of stability of diseases, you know. Also, at the same time as all of this, the U.S.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
gets a lot of information through these relationships. And of course, stopping diseases in one place helps make sure those outbreaks and those diseases don't come to our own shores. Right.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
It is already impacting them. And it's very hard to kind of underestimate the impact here. So, for example, clinics that treat malnourished children are running out of the therapeutic food that they used to give those children. The U.S. used to play a key role in stopping the spread of Ebola or MPOX, formerly monkeypox. And in many cases, now the U.S.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
is kind of missing in action as these outbreaks are happening. I just got back from Zambia and southern Africa where I met dozens of people who used to rely on U.S.-funded clinics that provided HIV medication. And many of those clinics closed their doors overnight. And these are HIV positive people who can no longer get the daily medication that they rely on.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
So without these pills, the virus level is climbing in their body and they are getting sick. So for example, I met one 10-year-old girl named Dorcas and she hasn't had her medication for over a week. And she was developing flu-like symptoms, fever, chill, sweats, classic signs that HIV levels are rising. I also spoke with a doctor there named Oswald Sindaza.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
He used to run an HIV clinic with a team of 21 staff members. Now he is the only clinician left with over 6,000 HIV patients.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
Experts up to the highest level of people working in HIV-AIDS have said that we are at risk of going back decades in terms of the progress made against this disease. Right. And I assume that's if nothing like USAID gets put back. It's a good question. The U.S. HIV AIDS program is kind of one of the flagship USAID efforts.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
Some of it's done through USAID, some through CDC, some through the State Department. So pieces of it are still standing, but a lot has crumbled. It's almost like a Jenga tower or something. Like often the whole system collapses when you pull out a few pieces.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
Absolutely. That is key here. So what makes it so challenging is that there was no warning. There was no transition plan in place, nothing like that. So that has left these huge gaps.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
So I think on a kind of global health scale, this question reminds me of a conversation I had with the Minister of Health in Zambia. He compared the situation to a major drought that Zambia has just gone through. And what he said was in the short term, there was a lot of pain, but in the long term, there were some silver linings. And I think global health-wise, things are changing monumentally.
Short Wave
Are DOGE Cuts Making America Healthy?
In the short term, we could see some real... death and devastation as a result. Long term, it's a lot less clear what this means. Will other countries step up? Will countries that had been receiving aid become more self-reliant in a good, sustainable way? It's very hard to tell.