The Trump administration’s sudden funding freezes and cuts on foreign aid and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have already caused severe damage to the health of people around the world – and “threaten catastrophic harms” to global health in the years ahead, warn Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), and affected individuals in Kenya and South Africa in a new amicus curiae brief filed in Global Health Council v. Trump at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“The impacts of the U.S. government’s aid cuts have been devastating but the court can still compel the administration to restore crucial foreign aid funding to avert irreversible losses or at least ameliorate further calamities,” said Sam Zia-Zarifi, JD, LLM, executive director of PHR.
“PHR has received reports of patient deaths in Ethiopia because clinics were shuttered and could not access maternal health care; increases in preventable mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Uganda; and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who could no longer access treatment kits to prevent HIV, treat STIs, and prevent pregnancy during a massive surge of violence in the DRC,” said Zarifi. “The abrupt freeze and cuts to U.S. global aid have caused irreversible harms to at risk populations around the world.”
The amicus brief reads:
“These harms are irremediable. Once a child is born HIV-positive or a malnourished infant dies, no restoration of funds can undo the loss. Each day of suspended aid compounds the toll: vaccination gaps fuel outbreaks; treatment lapses seed drug-resistant strains; and shuttered clinics sever lifelines for survivors of violence and displacement…
…The irreparable harm, particularly acute by the absence of any reasonable transition from obligated funds, outweighs any purported countervailing interest. Financial loss can be remedied later; lost lives cannot. USAID’s historic record shows what is possible when Congress’s directives are honored. The sudden withholding shows what happens when they are not.”
The amicus brief draws on extensive research and documentation of the emerging harms of the U.S. aid cuts, including PHR’s recent research in Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Kenya, plus insights from global health experts (Dr. Salim S. Abdool Karim, FRS, Dr. Dvora Joseph Davey) and a Kenyan woman (Mary “Doe”) raising a child living with HIV.
Read the full amicus brief here.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.