COVID-19 Stimulus Bill Funds State Dept/USAID Operations That Helped Trigger Polio Outbreak
While the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill was authored in the spirit of beating back a pandemic, buried deep within its text is a stipend for the US State Department operations dedicated to carrying out foreign interventions that have contributed to the outbreak of preventable diseases like polio in Syria and Pakistan.
Passed unanimously by Congress this March, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides $250 million for the State Department to implement “economic, security, and stabilization” activities through an “Economic Support Fund” (ESF). Earmarked for activities through September 2020, the bill authorizes the State Department to fund “international organizations.”
While the bill does not specify which organizations qualify for funding, many recent State Department “security and stabilization” operations have relied heavily on foreign proxies which did exactly the opposite of improving public health systems.