Do We Really Believe That a GOP Budget Would Lead to an Annual Increase of 30,000 Children Deaths from Malaria?

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah said the GOP budget would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children around the world, who rely on American funding. Of the 70,000 deaths, 30,000 would come from slashing malaria control programs, 24,000 from lack of immunizations and 16,000 from unsafe birthing practices.

Sounds ominous, doesn't it?

To put things in perspective, let's start with malaria.

It is said that malaria kills more than 1 million people every year, including 3000 children each day. For children alone, that's 1.1 million per year. If Rajiv Shah's report refers to an annual increase of 30,000 children deaths from malaria, that's only 2.7% of the total. If the USAID program is so effective, why can't we make a bigger dent into the other 97.3% that are dying from malaria.

Let's go further into the malaria perspective.

The EPA was first formed in 1970. In two years, It banned the use of DDT in the United States, with associated influence on the rest of the world, so that DDT was no longer usable for malaria control and DDT production units went out of business. This was presumably based upon data that showed a reduced thickness in the shells of eagles' eggs

After nearly 30 years, the World Health Organization decided in 2006 to reverse its policy on DDT usage for malaria control. USAID made a similar a similar reversal about the same time.

That was about five years ago, but damage over 30 years cannot be easily corrected over a short time. The public has been brainwashed into thinking that pesticides are bad. All factories previously producing DDT have long-since been dismantled. The facilities would require considerable time for rebuilding. Justification for investment in DDT would be low, because of increased difficulty in obtaining permits for any pesticide production, etc.

When somebody comes up and says your new budget will kill 30,000 children per year through malaria, the response is how certain are you of that, when your previous actions have resulted in the deaths of many millions of children to the same disease?

As Americans, we are compassionate. We don't like to see even one child die of malaria. We have various charity organizations supported by the public and individuals. They do good work, and it is not accepted that only government can handle an operation such as this. The fact is government should get out of the business. Cut foreign aid to a minimum. Reduce restrictions on private enterprise so that they can get on with the program of supplying DDT, vaccinations, and education to the world's population in order to improve their lifestyle.