This study was published in The Lancet, which I trust on science and health issues even less than I trust today's Scientific American and Nature. I was already assured that cuts to USAID had resulted in death overseas. But according to this study, over 14 million people could die from U.S. foreign aid cuts.
Call me crass, by why do 14 million people around the globe rely on the U.S. taxpayer just to keep breathing? None of these countries has hospitals or clinics or food banks or farms? And how much aid is the rest of the world giving? Might they pump up the numbers a little bit to make up for the USAID cuts?
#BREAKING Over 14 million people could die from US foreign aid cuts: Lancet study pic.twitter.com/Mi4bezhopL
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 30, 2025
#UPDATE More than 14 million of the world's most vulnerable people could die because of the Trump administration's dismantling of US foreign aid, a study in the Lancet journal projected Tuesday.
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 30, 2025
The funding cuts at USAID "risk abruptly halting -- and even reversing -- two decades of progress in health among vulnerable populations," said study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.https://t.co/GXt34YzF4J
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 30, 2025
"The study in the prestigious Lancet journal was published as world and business leaders gather for a UN conference in Spain this week hoping to bolster the reeling aid sector," reads the linked article, noting that a third of them could be small children.
"Prestigious."
On a podcast the other day, Vice President J.D. Vance confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio's findings that only 12 cents of every dollar sent as foreign aid actual gets to the people it was intended to help.
JD Vance confirms Marco Rubio’s findings. Only 12 cents of every dollar sent away as foreign aid is actually spent on what it’s supposed to be spent on
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) June 28, 2025
The rest is laundered by NGOs and their “subcontractors”
JD Vance “So we send $100,000 to this group to buy food for poor kids… pic.twitter.com/4wNhns3SCh
The post continues:
… in Africa. Okay, and what actually happens is it's not $100,000 that goes to the food for the Poor Kids in Africa. The NGO, the non government organization that gets that money, contracts it out to somebody else, and then they subcontract it. So there’s like three or four middlemen.
Marco Rubio, who's the Secretary of State, he's a very good friend. What he told me is that his best estimate, after he had his team look at it, is that 88 cents of every dollar was actually being collected by middlemen. So every dollar we were spending, humanitarian assistance, 12 cents, was actually making it to people who needed it.
That's crazy.
So there's a lot of waste, man”
Why does the NGO get that money?
Made up number.
— 3gunGorilla (@GomesBolt) June 30, 2025
— GayPatriot (@GayPatriot) June 30, 2025
Ask Canada for the funding.
— ChazParker1 (@ChasParker1) June 30, 2025
Why is it on us? Why are we subsidizing the entire world?
— Fernando Gonzalez Tucker, Jr. (@FernyOfficial) June 30, 2025
This completely objective report was published by the Barcelona institute of health which, guess what? Has received funding from USAID. These places don't like when they're funding disappears.
— Dan Olovsky 🏴☠️🤡🍺 (@DORLOV1776) June 30, 2025
Maybe these foreign nations will start actually helping their own people
— ♱ Matteo ♱ (@JustTheTipMatt) June 30, 2025
The rest of the world can pick up the slack.
— Rick Moore (@richdarlen) June 30, 2025
Is this the same Lancet that later retracted a May 2020 study that falsely claimed that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine increased mortality and heart rhythm issues in COVID-19 patients?
— . (@zpez) June 30, 2025
— BWC617 (@bwc617) June 30, 2025
What obligation do Western democracies have to throw their money at the rest of the world?
— Jakob Vesely (@darkervesely) June 30, 2025
Just posts like this one playing on people's compassion.
I find it insulting that we infantilize all of the countries by assuming they can't take care of themselves and depend entirely on the United States just to live. How many millions died while USAID was up and running? It wasn't enough aid, so we had to keep increasing the flow to the NGOs.
***
