[mplanchard]

This article by Scott Alexander (Money Saved By Canceling Programs Does Not Immediately Flow To The Best Possible Alternative) talks a fair bit about how effective this program is: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/money-saved-by-canceling-pr...

It also makes the point that, under some reasonable assumptions, you could assume that any domestic program you could theoretically redirect the funding to would likely be ~100x less effective than PEPFAR, which is an abnormally effective aid program.

[perihelions]

Reasonable assumptions would not assume you to assuming the US' top medical bureaucrat being a conspiracy theorist who denies the existence of HIV (and asserts AIDS is environmental and that anti-retroviral drugs are dangerous toxins).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.#HIV/AIDS... ("Robert F. Kennedy Jr.#HIV/AIDS denialism")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_Anthony_Fauci

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/rfk-aids-hiv-hh...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/13/opinion/kennedys-views-on...

[mplanchard]

Yes, given the new health secretary, it's likely to be much more than 100x worse, if the money is redirected to any sort of positive end at all.