Did you not hear the claim that was widely quoted in the media that USAID had saved more than 91 million lives over 20 years? Anyone who believes that hasn’t done any math on it, or even thought about that number at all. I’m too hungry to be eloquent about it, so here’s someone else who is: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4eQZdxlPCU>.
You'll have to disagree with a lot of scholars, in addition to this HN comment, to make your point. This is the '90 million' study:
> This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths) [1]
30B+ is pocket change for the US, but makes a massive impact in poorer countries.
It also had a soft power effect that the current US government seems completely oblivious to [2].
Did you not hear the claim that was widely quoted in the media that USAID had saved more than 91 million lives over 20 years? Anyone who believes that hasn’t done any math on it, or even thought about that number at all. I’m too hungry to be eloquent about it, so here’s someone else who is: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4eQZdxlPCU>.
You'll have to disagree with a lot of scholars, in addition to this HN comment, to make your point. This is the '90 million' study:
> This finding indicates that 91 839 663 (95% CI 85 690 135–98 291 626) all-age deaths, including 30 391 980 (26 023 132–35 482 636) in children younger than 5 years, were prevented by USAID funding over the 21-year study period. USAID funding was associated with a 65% reduction (RR 0·35, 0·29-0·42) in mortality from HIV/AIDS (representing 25·5 million deaths), 51% (RR 0·49, 0·39–0·61) from malaria (8·0 million deaths), and 50% (RR 0·50, 0·40–0·62) from neglected tropical diseases (8·9 million deaths) [1]
30B+ is pocket change for the US, but makes a massive impact in poorer countries.
It also had a soft power effect that the current US government seems completely oblivious to [2].
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(25)01186-9/full...
[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23353912
[3] https://time.com/article/2026/05/15/usaid-shutdown-rise-glob...
No, that is the very study that is completely absurd on it’s face. Watch the video again.
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Why don't you show us the math you claim disproves this?