Michael M. Phillips
Appearances
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
Well, I think there's been a general sense of panic. So I spoke to somebody the other day. This person has family members who are HIV positive. And they've been on antiretrovirals through PEPFAR. And some of those family members are literally going out and picking out grave sites for themselves because they don't think they're going to make it. Oh, my goodness.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
So imagine that, like you thought you were okay. You thought you'd gotten past this disease. You could live with it. You're not transmitting it to anybody. And suddenly you're looking around and thinking, I can't afford to buy drugs and no one's going to give them to me anymore. So, well, I'll save my family the trouble and I'll pick a place to bury myself.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
And, you know, it's a stunning thought.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
PEPFAR is a program that the United States government finances to combat AIDS worldwide and to treat people who have HIV to prevent them from becoming AIDS patients and then ultimately from dying. And Bush started this program as a way sort of to... reach out to people who cared about Africa.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
And the real innovation of PEPFAR was that the U.S. agreed to pay to keep poor Africans who had HIV infections alive. And the results have been really astounding. Something like 25 or 26 million people in Africa are alive today because the United States helps them stay alive.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
I think that most people would say it's been extraordinarily successful. People who would otherwise be dead by the millions are alive today. So I think, medically speaking, and for many, many, many years, politically speaking, it was a very popular project.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
I think there are people in the administration who believe that the aid industry or the world of foreign assistance was beyond repair in some way, wasn't achieving what they wanted to achieve, wasn't oriented enough towards American self-interest, which is clearly what the America First agenda is.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
They just thought that you couldn't fix it a little bit at a time and you had to fix it or kill it all at once.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
I think the freeze on PEPFAR and everything else was very intentional. You'd have to know absolutely nothing about U.S. foreign assistance to not know about PEPFAR. I don't know what percentage of foreign aid has anything to do with diversity and those issues. It's not very large. I think we can be confident of that. Most of it is simply helping other people.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
And then, you know, there's a debate about whether that's what you want to do with taxpayer money. I won't make a judgment about that, but the administration has clearly signaled what their judgment is.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
The problem is, the waiver itself has to be approved. It's not just a blanket waiver, go out and spend the money that was already allocated.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
You've got nobody to call up and say, okay, you know, you and I have been working together for five years. Here's my new budget. There's no one that answered the phone. So it's like a promise of a waiver has been issued, but the waivers themselves have not.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
So there's a lot of confusion amongst the people who implement these AIDS programs as to whether they can actually go ahead and give out drugs to people who are sick. And so the chaos around these programs is extraordinary.
The Journal.
The U.S. Spent Billions Fighting AIDS. What Now?
I think that most of the people who have been involved in PEPFAR When asked, what does this mean, would say, people are going to die. Lots of people are going to die. There's nobody that's stepping in to provide these drugs that the U.S. government provided. And once you're off the drugs, you know, HIV will get you.