Malaria Fund Cuts 'Risk Lives,' War Budgets Soar
While The Global Fund faces a reported $4 billion shortfall, risking widespread, preventable deaths (from a disease that killed 608,000 in 2022, according to WHO), the US Senate just approved an additional $14 billion in military aid to Israel, bringing its total annual package to an unprecedented $26 billion in 2024. Curiously, no major news outlets ran headlines about the moral 'risk' of cutting
funds to basic human needs while escalating military budgets. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), key proponents of the aid package, have received hundreds of thousands in political donations from pro-Israel PACs over their careers (OpenSecrets.org). It appears the calculus for 'risk' weighs heavily on which lives are deemed politically expedient to save. One might ponder how
many malaria nets or vaccine doses could have been purchased with the cost of a single F-35 jet, but alas, headlines prefer the drama of faraway conflicts over the inconvenient truth of preventable deaths.