One of President Donald Trump’s first actions after taking office last month was to sign an executive order freezing foreign aid, much of which flows through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an independent agency that represents less than 1 percent of the overall federal budget. The administration later said that “lifesaving” work was exempt and could continue. But USAID employees and officials from non-profit organizations say they are still being blocked from doing vital work on ending the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
The consequences may be dire: “At a minimum, 300 babies that wouldn’t have had HIV, now do,” one current USAID worker estimates.
WIRED interviewed eight current and
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