Deepening Peril of Disease As Trump Cuts Foreign Aid

With safeguards eroding, scientists warn of outbreaks that may reach U.S.

Author

Matt Davis
March 10, 2025

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Today’s lead story by Apoorva Mandavilli is just perfect for a Monday morning when the clocks went back and you’re already feeling like you got socked in the face.

Ms. Mandavilli reports that “the Trump administration’s pause on foreign aid has hobbled programs that prevent and snuff out outbreaks around the world, scientists say, leaving people everywhere more vulnerable to threatening viruses and bacteria.”

The good news, of course, is that bacteria and viruses respect international borders and so an outbreak of polio or dengue or, say, coronavirus is only going to affect the country it broke out in. Wait. WHAT?

“It’s actually in the interest of American people to keep diseases down,” said Dr. Githinki Gitahi, who heads Amref Health Africa, a large nonprofit that relies on the United States for about 25 percent of its funding. “Diseases make their way to the U.S. even when we have our best people on it, and now we are not putting our best people on it,” he added.

Which makes you wonder why the Trump administration cut funding for the programs, really. There’s a 1979 film called “Scum” starring a young Ray Winstone, in which the lead character socks a bully with a pool ball, stuffed in a sock, in one of the early scenes. Winstone’s character is afraid. So he does something violent. Lately I’ve been comparing the Trump administration to Winstone’s character in that movie, but instead of socking the bully, they’re hitting themselves in the face with a pool ball, stuffed in a sock. Repeatedly. Or maybe they’re socking us all?

The timing is “dire,” Ms. Mandavilli reports.

“The Democratic Republic of Congo is experiencing the deadliest mpox outbreak in history, with cases exploding in a dozen other African countries. The United States is home to a worsening bird flu crisis. Multiple hemorrhagic fever viruses are smoldering: Ebola in Uganda, Marburg in Tanzania, and Lassa in Nigeria and Sierra Leone.”

This is a “lose-lose scenario,” said Dr. Keiji Fukuda, who has led pandemic prevention efforts at the W.H.O. and the C.D.C.

The so-far sunny article takes a moderately dark turn towards the end, warning that it’s not only pandemics which are likely to occur. There’s also a “fear of bioterrorism” because “many labs in Africa store samples of pathogens that naturally occur in the environment, including several that can be weaponized.”

“With surveillance programs shut off, the pathogens could be stolen, and a bioterrorism attack might go undetected until it was too late to counter.”"

“Some experts worried about bad actors who may release a threat like cholera into the water, or weaponize anthrax or brucellosis, common in African animals. Others said they were concerned that even unskilled handling of these disease threats might be enough to set off a disaster.”

Funding from the U.S. government helped hire and train lab workers to maintain and dispose of dangerous viruses and bacteria safely.

But now, pathogens can be moved in and out of labs with no one the wiser. “We have lost our ability to understand where pathogens are being held,” said Kaitlin Sandhaus, founder and chief executive of Global Implementation Solutions.

Her company helped 17 African labs become accredited in biosafety procedures and supported five countries in drafting laws to ensure compliance. Now the firm is shutting down.

In the future, other countries, including China, will know more about where risky pathogens are housed, Ms. Sandhaus said. “It feels very dangerous to me.”

Doesn’t it, just?

The good news is that with all these experts warning about the spread of deadly diseases, I can’t imagine the Trump administration would continue hell-bent on its path of assured self-destruction. They’re bound to do the sensible thing immediately and reinstate the money.

(Checks notes).

Actually they’re sending out surveys to recipients of the money asking them whether they take money from communist governments. That’s from a separate story by the same reporter this morning. Meanwhile Robert F. Kennedy, the health secretary, has been criticized for downplaying a measles outbreak in Texas which has killed a child. He’s touted over-the-counter remedies and said the decision to vaccinate is “personal,” and on Friday he announced that the Center for Disease Control will investigate the debunked link between vaccines and autism.

“It’s been exhaustively studied,” Mr. Cassidy, a doctor, said during the confirmation hearing for Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health. “The more we pretend like this is an issue, the more we will have children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.”

There again, perhaps that’s the goal?

WATCH OUT, AMERICA.

Thanks for letting me read the newspaper so that you don’t have to. Please pass this along to anyone you think might enjoy it. And thanks for being willing to read the news with me, however insane and terrible it is.

Jesus f___ing Christ.

Matt Davis lives in Manhattan with his wife and child.