The AIDS epidemic has killed more than 40 million people since the first recorded cases in 1981, tripling child mortality and carving decades off life expectancy in the hardest-hit areas of Africa, where the cost of treatment put it out of reach. Horrified, then-President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress two decades ago created what is described as the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease.
The program, known as the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, partners with nonprofit groups to provide HIV/AIDS medication to millions around the world. It strengthens local and national health care systems, cares for children orphaned by AIDS and provides job training for people at risk.
Now, a few Republican lawmakers are endangering the stability of the program, which officials say has saved 25 million lives in 55 countries from Ukraine to Brazil to Indonesia. That includes the lives of 5.5 million infants born HIV-free.
No one lives in isolation. Even if you don’t see the value in humanitarian efforts and even if in your selfishness you don’t have the selfish wisdom to support US soft power projection, you should be smart enough to realize that the US does not exist in an impermeable bubble. Global health improves health at home.
I took medical anthropology recently and this is the best answer. Helping others, even if they seem too far away to affect you in your individualist isolationist country, will actually affect your health.
I’ve found it’s just an all around great policy in life to do good things for others, even if it seems like it doesn’t serve your interests, because these things have a way of coming back around in unexpected ways.
or, in the case of a sexually transmitted disease, not coming around. who’s to say your next sexual partner mightn’t have gone on an overseas adventure, had a wild fling with a native, and if not for this policy, caught an STI?
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