Contraceptives and Emergency Food Aid Facing Incineration at Hands of Trump Administration

So much for government efficiency. So much for eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Today, as a result of deliberate policy choices, nearly $12 million of contraceptives and HIV medicines — already purchased by the US government — are sitting in warehouses instead of being delivered to the health care providers they were meant for. At the same time, nearly 500 metric tons of high energy biscuits — again, already purchased — are being left to rot and face imminent incineration.

It’s a disgraceful waste of money and a grotesque abrogation of US leadership in global health. But worse, it’s leaving millions of people without essential care and food.

The condoms, IUDs, pills, and implants were originally meant mainly for vulnerable women in sub-Saharan Africa, including young girls (who face higher health risks from early pregnancy) and those fleeing conflict. Instead of helping these people avoid unwanted pregnancies, the Trump administration is considering simply destroying the stock.

This is all part of the administration’s work to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and withdraw from decades of support for global health and family planning. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has known about the problem for months but is refusing to ensure that these supplies make it where they are needed. In fact, he told congressional leaders in May that he would ensure the biscuits would be distributed, but an order to incinerate them had already been given.

At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on July 16, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) asked Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas if this failure was “incompetency or cruelty, or both.” Other senators shared his outrage, including Senator Cory Booker, who would not accept Deputy Secretary Rigas’s explanations. The senators did not accept Rigas’s statement that he would look into the issue and that he didn’t “have a good answer to that question.” Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) demanded at the end of the hearing that the State Department provide the committee with an inventory of resources that are sitting by the end of the week, and that if the State Department cannot distribute the supplies, they should at least allow other aid organizations to do so. Deputy Secretary Rigas committed to that.

These senators are right to be furious. The refusal to move food and contraceptives out of warehouses and into the hands of those who need them isn’t just logistical. It’s ideological.

Senators Shaheen and Brian Schatz (D-HI) have introduced legislation to prevent the administration from destroying the contraceptives or any other medical supplies or any food. The Saving Lives and Taxpayer Dollars Act, will ensure that these supplies are distributed. In the House, Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Grace Meng (D-NY), and Lois Frankel (D-FL) have followed suit and introduced similar legislation.

Brian Dixon, Senior Vice President for Political and Government Affairs, said:

When hundreds of thousands of children are on the brink of starvation and millions of people lack access to family planning, it seems inconceivable that life-saving emergency food and contraceptives would be left to rot in warehouses. Yet that’s exactly what is happening. The Trump administration is letting millions of dollars’ worth of contraceptives and nutritional aid go to waste — ignoring urgent global needs, squandering taxpayer funds, and endangering innocent lives in the process.

It shouldn’t take a bill, but Trump and Rubio have made clear that wasting taxpayer money in support of unpopular ideological crusades is a small price to pay.

Unfortunately, those who will pay will do so in unintended pregnancies and malnutrition.

Contact Brian Dixon at bdixon@popconnect.org or 202-974-7744.