"Close to 40 years later, another US administration has blood on its hands. As it was then, it is now: this is death by public policy. And it is more than that. As the great actress and AIDS activist Elizabeth Taylor said in the 1990s, "In a society that claims to value human life above all, the deliberate withholding of the means to self-protection is more than passive neglect. It is a measured act of premeditated murder.""
"It is clear that many, many people have and will continue to die from what the Trump administration has brought us in just a year: the closure of USAID; the destruction of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria treatment and prevention efforts; polio eradication; and the gutting of maternal and child health programs around the world, among countless other crimes. As Atul Gawande said in The New Yorker in early November 2025: "As of November 5th, it [was] estimated that U.S.A.I.D.'s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.""
"Secretary of State Marco Rubio has denied any suggestion that the policies he has presided over have been responsible for any deaths at all. Meanwhile, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, brushed the accusation off as well when pressed on the issue in Congress. That lack of contrition would be bad enough, but it's worse than that. As ProPublica reported, some administration officials actually celebrated their bloody efforts with a little fete for themselves last February: "In a corner conference room, it was time to party. They traded congratulatory speeches and cut into a""
RFK Jr. and allied figures are accused of promoting policies that will harm American children. Historical references link current actions to past AIDS-era activism and imagery. The deliberate dismantling of USAID and global health programs is described as causing widespread death by removing prevention and treatment for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal-child health. An estimate attributes roughly six hundred thousand deaths, two-thirds children, to USAID's dismantling. Senior officials publicly denied responsibility, while reporting indicated some administration personnel celebrated the policy outcomes. The framing presents these outcomes as culpable, intentional, and catastrophic for vulnerable populations.
Read at The Nation
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