This story is part of “Pills, Perils, Profits”, a Himal investigative series on Southasian pharmaceutical manufacturing and exports. The series was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
THERE IS A commonly held belief in global health, an inside joke among veterans of the sector: the making of sausages and health policy are two things best left unseen. This has never been more true than right now as the US government under Donald Trump, with one executive order after another, accelerates the collapse of the global health order as we know it.
This is not hyperbole.
With Trump’s cuts to US funding, key initiatives like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are faced with drastic reductions of resources, threatening health security especially in poor countries.