How Foreign Aid Cuts Are Hurting Global Health: PIH Experts in the News

With decades of experience working in global health, Partners In Health (PIH) is a trusted resource for partners, advocates, and journalists. During the current Trump administration, global health has been repeatedly under attack despite PIH's insistence that budgets and policy remain grounded in the lived experiences of patients.

Even programs like the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR-with bipartisan support throughout its 23-year history of saving lives-have not been spared from threats to their funding and programming.

However, the current White House has largely tried to keep the public and Congress in the dark about many of its decisions. We have needed to rely on the work of fellow advocates-like author Emily Bass-and journalists who have been willing to use their platforms to inform the public about the realities and consequences of the administration's actions.

Journalists from around the world have connected with PIH experts and advocates to untangle, analyze, and humanize the challenges in global health. Below are several examples of PIH acting as a source of truth in recent months for news outlets around the world.

GBH News: Boston nonprofit details how children are dying due to last year's USAID cuts

Without critical funding, one of the primary treatments for malnutrition has become less accessible to families who need it the most. Dr. Joia Mukherjee, senior clinical and academic advisor, shares the implications of Trump's foreign aid cuts on real PIH patients.

Read the full article here >

Defending PEPFAR for Over 20 Million People

In 2002, the late PIH Co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer provided evidence to the White House that ultimately helped convince President George W. Bush to announce PEPFAR. This history, combined with PIH's experience implementing PEPFAR programming, means PIH is uniquely positioned to provide expertise on the program.

This year, PIH's Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy, and KJ Seung, a physician and global health researcher at Mass General Brigham, have provided context, analyses, and their outlook to several news outlets.

Read their perspectives from Devex in March, Science in March, NPR in April, and Devex again in July.

WTOP News: WTOP Explains: Trump's impact on the global health landscape

In this video interview, Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy, explains how foreign aid cuts have had a negative impact on public health and overall disease management, both in the U.S. and globally, one year after they were implemented.

Watch the interview here >

Devex: Global Fund cuts signal sharper shift toward poorest countries

As overall global health funding continues to disappear, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria may also have to cut back funding to several countries that implement its programs. PIH's Molly McGovern, senior director of public sector partnerships, explains how these cuts could be detrimental to achieving universal health coverage.

Read the full article here >

Providing Transparency on Government Spending

Earlier this year, Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy, joined forces with colleague KJ Seung, a physician and global health researcher at Mass General Brigham, to analyze previously unseen global health spending data. This analysis uncovered shocking and likely illegal discrepancies in global health spending. Lin and Seung also launched a new dashboard that provides a visual guide to public global health spending data-data that is otherwise quite difficult to track.

Since its launch, the dashboard has been cited by numerous journalists helping make federal spending more transparent and accessible.

See how the information was used by the New York Times in April, CNN in May, and ProPublica in June.

ProPublica: "Digital Colonialism": U.S. Demands to Access Africans' Data Raise Privacy, Sovereignty Concerns

In the U.S. government's recent health agreements, countries signing on for lifesaving support must agree to provide the U.S. with their citizens' health data. Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy, provides analysis of what aid could look like in the near future.

Read the full article here >

Sharing Expertise on Ebola Outbreaks and Response

PIH is no stranger to responding to epidemics, jumping in to support local partners and the ministries of health in Sierra Leone and Liberia during the largest Ebola epidemic in 2014. During the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, several PIHers have provided expertise to various news outlets.

Hear from Dr. Joia Mukherjee, senior clinical and academic advisor, in Wired; Dr. John Welch, senior director of clinical systems, in the Boston Globe; and Sheila Davis, CEO, and Vincent Lin, associate director of health policy and advocacy, in TIME.

The New York Times: New Plan Scales Back C.D.C.'s Work on Diseases Abroad

As a new plan shows the State Department aiming to take control of global health initiatives, experts around the world share how this could cause more harm than good. Dr. Alain Casséus, who leads infectious disease work at Zanmi Lasante, PIH's sister organization in Haiti, shares how this would affect communities there, threatening the lifesaving HIV care that many people rely on.

Read the full article here >

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].