STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump, with the help of Elon Musk, cut billions of dollars in global health programs earlier this year. The administration has dismissed the idea that that had much effect. Here's an exchange between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Democratic Representative Brad Sherman of California during a hearing last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRAD SHERMAN: Has anyone in the world died because of what Elon Musk did?
MARCO RUBIO: Listen...
SHERMAN: Yes or no, reclaiming my time. If you won't answer, that's a loud answer.
RUBIO: No one has died because of USAID...
SHERMAN: The people who have died...
RUBIO: That's a lie.
SHERMAN: ...As a result of...
INSKEEP: That was the assertion - nobody died because of the cuts to USAID. So we checked it out, which is a thing we do at NPR. People say stuff. We let you know, and then check the facts. Is it true? NPR global health correspondent Gabrielle Emanuel is on the line. Good morning.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: How do you go about checking if that statement is true, that nobody died?
EMANUEL: So I spoke to a lot of people in a variety of different countries, and the answer is yes, people have died as a result of aid cuts. So let me tell you about one family. They live in a town in northeastern Nigeria, and the mother's name is Mariam Mohammed (ph).
MARIAM MOHAMMED: (Speaking Kanuri).
EMANUEL: She told me that her younger son was 7 years old. He had a bike he loved, and he had sickle cell disease. She took him to a local clinic for his medical care. Then this past February, she noticed one night that her son had a fever. Early in the morning, she rushed him to the clinic.
MOHAMMED: (Speaking Kanuri).
EMANUEL: Speaking in Kanuri, she said when they got there, the security guards said the clinic was closed. That clinic had been funded by USAID and had received a stop-work order about a week earlier.
MOHAMMED: (Speaking Kanuri).
EMANUEL: "I was shocked and became angry," says Mariam Mohammed, who is a widow. She didn't have money to pay for treatment at the government clinic. She says she prayed for God to intervene. Her son died that night. His name was Babagana (ph). Edifre Jacob (ph) is a doctor at the clinic. He cared for Babagana before the stop-work order. He says patients with sickle cell disease, where the red blood cells are misshapen, can deteriorate very quickly, but prompt medical care can save their lives.
EDIFRE JACOB: We are sure we would have done something to save the patients.
EMANUEL: Now this particular U.S.-funded clinic did reopen in mid-April, but many others like it are still closed.
INSKEEP: Wow. There's a lot of details we could talk about there. One of them being she couldn't afford to pay for health care from her own government, but was getting help from the United States at one time. With that said, how certain are you that this death was the result of U.S. aid cuts?
EMANUEL: Well, he didn't get medical help that day, so we don't actually know exactly what was making him sick. But his doctor says they take care of a lot of patients with sickle cell, including the boy's brother, and with good results. Other experts I spoke with said there are several serious conditions the boy could have had. One is sepsis, a life-threatening infection. It's not uncommon for people with sickle cell, but with antibiotics, it's curable if the clinic had been open to provide treatment.
INSKEEP: Is there evidence of other deaths linked to aid cuts?
EMANUEL: Well, it is very hard to pin down precise numbers. In many places, including where this family is from, there isn't a formal system for death certificates. The U.S. had funded efforts to gather this type of data, but aid cuts have disrupted much of that. Now, there are researchers who are trying to get to the bottom of this.
INSKEEP: OK. What are they finding?
EMANUEL: Well, modeling out of Boston University estimates that the abrupt cuts to USAID have meant nearly 300,000 people have died to date. These are really rough estimates, but they give a sense of scale. Researchers are talking many thousands of deaths, not dozens. The State Department did not respond to requests for comment, but in front of Congress, Marco Rubio pushed back, saying these models are completely inaccurate and maintained that nobody, especially no child, has died on his watch.
INSKEEP: NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel. Thanks so much.
EMANUEL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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