Elon Musk’s Cuts to USAID Could Lead to More Than 14 Million Deaths in Next 5 Years: New Study
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
A new study in The Lancet medical journal warns that cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) could result in some 14 million deaths in the next five years, with children under 5 years of age making up a third of those likely to die.
“Beyond causing millions of avoidable deaths – particularly among the most vulnerable – these cuts risk reversing decades of progress in health and socioeconomic development in LMICs [low and middle-income countries],” the report concluded.
The study used complex data modeling for “demographic, socioeconomic, and health-care factors to estimate the impact of USAID funding on all-age and all-cause mortality from 2001 to 2021” and found that the agency prevented 91,839,663 deaths during that time period. 30,391,980 of those prevented deaths were children under 5.
The study then ran models projecting two scenarios, one in which the 2023 funding levels continued for USAID’s program around the globe and another that took into account the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency – the second model estimated the 14 million preventable deaths.
USAID’s work has been widely praised for its impact on healthcare in Africa and has been linked to a 65% drop in HIV/AIDS deaths – saving some 25.5 million people in recent decades. The agency is also attributed with stopping “eight million deaths from malaria, more than half the total, around 11 million from diarrheal diseases and nearly five million from tuberculosis (TB),” noted SkyNews.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio made headlines in May when he testified before Congress that it was a “lie” that anyone had died as a result of DOGE effectively shutting down USAID.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof traveled to Africa in recent months to report on the impact of USAID cuts and ripped into Rubio and the Trump administration after seeing the devastating toll firsthand. Kristof spoke to the Bulwark’s Tim Miller late last week and lit into DOGE, not only for closing USAID, but for wasting government funds to do so.
“And it’s just maddening, I mean, especially for something that said it was about government efficiency. To see the toll of the inefficiency, the State Department has one estimate that the cost of shutting down USAID was $6 billion,” Kristof said.
“You know, someone said it’s saving money, they’ve spent $6 billion killing a lot of kids,” he concluded.
