From: Ann Jones
Columbus
For 20 plus years, the focus for the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, has been to keep people alive. President Bush’s program saved 26 million lives in Africa alone. He built enormous good will toward the U.S. with the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief and helped people in the U.S. and worldwide by disseminating antiretroviral medicines. Perhaps you have heard of Granny Connection in Columbus whose mission was to assist 500 families in Zambia with health care and education.
Recently our current administration put a freeze on USAID, a program which has helped many countries globally giving new life to people with AIDS. Perhaps USAID could use some reform, but shutting down the agency’s programming without transitional planning has proved catastrophic! There has been an estimate of 300,000 deaths thus far from reduction in American PEPFAR assistance; two thirds of the deaths were children. The number of deaths is preposterous but the U.S. cutting of funds has remained so very quietly lethal. People’s viral loads continue to increase and the tides of suffering and death are increasing also.
For just 12 cents a day, the antiretroviral medications give those infected a real future. But a study in a recent Lancet publication stated suspending HIV/AIDS relief programs could easily result in one million infections by 2030. This could lead to 500,000 deaths among children, many more newborn deaths and 2.8 million orphans. (Based on information from Nicholas Kristoff, a New York Times writer).
Elon Musk and Marco Rubio have assured us that no lives have been lost – outright lies! In the silence, lack of medication is resulting in extreme suffering and death. Why does a person/child in sub-Saharan Africa have less worth than those in Columbus? Who cares? I do and I hope you do also! Write your congress persons. Please!
