This is one of those posts where the “policy” label becomes a kind of moral evasion. When you abruptly interrupt food systems, HIV/TB/malaria treatment continuity, maternal–child health programs, and outbreak surveillance, the downstream isn’t abstract, but it’s excess mortality, concentrated among children and the medically vulnerable. Your decision to name individuals makes that causal chain impossible to hand-wave away. 
From a physician-scientist lens, what’s so chilling is how predictable the mechanisms are: medication stock-outs → rebound viremia/opportunistic infections; clinic closures → missed antenatal care and preventable neonatal deaths; disrupted vector control → malaria resurgence; weakened surveillance → delayed outbreak detection. None of this requires speculative theory, just basic biology plus supply chains. 
I also appreciate the discipline in your framing: debate the effectiveness of aid, sure, but don’t confuse “reform” with sudden withdrawal without transition. If a model estimates mortality at this scale, the exact point estimate matters less than the ethical fact that we knowingly pulled supports in a way that made deaths foreseeable. 
Thank you for writing the version that refuses anesthesia. Names should not be the price of attention, but in practice, they often are.
Thank you for documenting this. I’m sitting here waiting for my car to be repaired and wiping away tears. They had names. They had families. They were loved. I sincerely hope these people will be held accountable for the unimaginable (& entirely preventable) suffering and destruction they have caused.
Elon and T**** are directly responsible for what happened to these and countless other people here.They should be made to pay through the nose for every single one of these people's deaths.Take THEIR money and reinstate these programs,and expand them.Every person responsible must be held fully accountable,without exception!!
These were living ,breathing human beings,not an abstraction.Every death was tragic,senseless and fully preventable.And sadly,this will ripple down for years to come.
… least we forget ….. thank you for this research and statistics- I doubt any American, or indeed any other nation’s govt aid organization had achieved so much for so many - unforgivable….. 🙏
Renee Good and Alex Pretti both chose to initiate confrontations with armed law enforcement officers during the course of their duties. Regardless of the precise details, that’s a dumb thing to do. Both of them were the authors of their own fate.
All of these examples you give seem to have one thing in common: the countries are really screwed up. They’re persecuting some ethnic minority or having a civil war or lack basic transportation infrastructure. Maybe these countries should fix their own problems. It’s probably true that western aid has saved some individual lives, but for all we know the NGO industrial complex is one factor keeping Africa screwed up.
No, his parents, his community, or his country should probably work on that. I suppose we could just invade and manage those countries. How do you think that would work out?
In most of the countries cited in the article, many people battle hard to 'fix their problems,' which is often near-impossible without democracy. In Myanmar, for instance, rebels have been fighting for years against a brutal military regime which overthrew the democratically-elected government in 2021.
Two-year-old Mohammed Hashim starved to death because a now-trillionaire decided to cut less than 1% from the budget of the richest country ever to have existed. Thaw Wah lost her mother because USAID switched off the dialysis machines.
While the catastrophes in countries like Myanmar persist, we can easily afford to support their weakest and most vulnerable, who had no part in creating the crises nor should be expected to solve them.
Just seeing this after clicking on a link in the Philly Inquirer today... What an important essay. Well researched and still relevant, even though a billion bad things have happened since February. Thank you for identifying all these children. I often feel we (in the US) only think about our country, our rights, ourselves. It's so disgusting that so many atrocities are occurring around the globe, and that there is little to no news coverage of it. Not to mention the apathy of the average American reader. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Tim.
This is one of those posts where the “policy” label becomes a kind of moral evasion. When you abruptly interrupt food systems, HIV/TB/malaria treatment continuity, maternal–child health programs, and outbreak surveillance, the downstream isn’t abstract, but it’s excess mortality, concentrated among children and the medically vulnerable. Your decision to name individuals makes that causal chain impossible to hand-wave away. 
From a physician-scientist lens, what’s so chilling is how predictable the mechanisms are: medication stock-outs → rebound viremia/opportunistic infections; clinic closures → missed antenatal care and preventable neonatal deaths; disrupted vector control → malaria resurgence; weakened surveillance → delayed outbreak detection. None of this requires speculative theory, just basic biology plus supply chains. 
I also appreciate the discipline in your framing: debate the effectiveness of aid, sure, but don’t confuse “reform” with sudden withdrawal without transition. If a model estimates mortality at this scale, the exact point estimate matters less than the ethical fact that we knowingly pulled supports in a way that made deaths foreseeable. 
Thank you for writing the version that refuses anesthesia. Names should not be the price of attention, but in practice, they often are.
My god, what an indictment. Read it and weep.
Thank you for putting names and faces to this travesty. It's heartbreaking.
I'm really glad you did this. We should know these names and remember them.
Thank you for documenting this. I’m sitting here waiting for my car to be repaired and wiping away tears. They had names. They had families. They were loved. I sincerely hope these people will be held accountable for the unimaginable (& entirely preventable) suffering and destruction they have caused.
Very well done, Tim. Too often aid cuts are talked of in the abstract. The numbers represent real human beings.
Elon and T**** are directly responsible for what happened to these and countless other people here.They should be made to pay through the nose for every single one of these people's deaths.Take THEIR money and reinstate these programs,and expand them.Every person responsible must be held fully accountable,without exception!!
These were living ,breathing human beings,not an abstraction.Every death was tragic,senseless and fully preventable.And sadly,this will ripple down for years to come.
… least we forget ….. thank you for this research and statistics- I doubt any American, or indeed any other nation’s govt aid organization had achieved so much for so many - unforgivable….. 🙏
Renee Good and Alex Pretti both chose to initiate confrontations with armed law enforcement officers during the course of their duties. Regardless of the precise details, that’s a dumb thing to do. Both of them were the authors of their own fate.
All of these examples you give seem to have one thing in common: the countries are really screwed up. They’re persecuting some ethnic minority or having a civil war or lack basic transportation infrastructure. Maybe these countries should fix their own problems. It’s probably true that western aid has saved some individual lives, but for all we know the NGO industrial complex is one factor keeping Africa screwed up.
Heartless. Two-year-old Abdi Bari should have "fixed his own problems," should he?
No, his parents, his community, or his country should probably work on that. I suppose we could just invade and manage those countries. How do you think that would work out?
In most of the countries cited in the article, many people battle hard to 'fix their problems,' which is often near-impossible without democracy. In Myanmar, for instance, rebels have been fighting for years against a brutal military regime which overthrew the democratically-elected government in 2021.
Two-year-old Mohammed Hashim starved to death because a now-trillionaire decided to cut less than 1% from the budget of the richest country ever to have existed. Thaw Wah lost her mother because USAID switched off the dialysis machines.
While the catastrophes in countries like Myanmar persist, we can easily afford to support their weakest and most vulnerable, who had no part in creating the crises nor should be expected to solve them.
This is so powerful, Tim. Gut wrenching.
Just seeing this after clicking on a link in the Philly Inquirer today... What an important essay. Well researched and still relevant, even though a billion bad things have happened since February. Thank you for identifying all these children. I often feel we (in the US) only think about our country, our rights, ourselves. It's so disgusting that so many atrocities are occurring around the globe, and that there is little to no news coverage of it. Not to mention the apathy of the average American reader. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Tim.
Well now I’m tearing up on the El. Excellent piece, thank you for writing this.
that is why the guilty will not survive this.