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The Indicator from Planet Money

One of the cheapest ways to save a life is going away (EXTENDED VERSION)

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.79.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today, we're making it available for everyone!

U.S. aid helped Eswatini and Lesotho, two small countries in southern Africa, in their efforts to treat and curb the spread of HIV. Will President Trump's "America First" foreign policy threaten years of progress there against the virus?

In this bonus episode, we're featuring an extended conversation between Darian Woods and Jon Cohen, senior correspondent with Science magazine. They talk about Jon's reporting trip to Eswatini and Lesotho in May and the early impacts he saw of the Trump administration's foreign aid cuts. We also hear about the critical role of PEPFAR (the U.S. President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) in the global response to HIV/AIDS and some other things we couldn't fit into the original episode.

You can read Jon's recent article in Science magazine here.

To hear more bonus episodes like this, and get Planet Money and The Indicator without sponsor messages, support the show by signing up for Planet Money+.

This summer, we're also giving Planet Money+ supporters early access to new episodes. Another reason to join! Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at
plus.npr.org.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, indicated listeners, Darian Woods here. We are off for the holiday, so instead, today,

0:05.9

we are sharing a recent bonus episode with you. If you're a Planet Money Plus supporter,

0:11.5

thank you, you already got this earlier. If you're not signed up for Plus,

0:16.3

let me just tell you that bonus episodes like this one come out every couple of weeks in the

0:20.7

Planet Money feed. By joining, you also get Planet Money, The Indicator, just tell you that bonus episodes like this one come out every couple of weeks in the Planet

0:21.0

Money feed. By joining, you also get Planet Money, The Indicator and Planet Money Summer

0:26.4

School without the sponsor messages. And speaking of Summer School, when the new season kicks

0:31.9

off next week, Plus supporters will get early access to new episodes. You get to listen before

0:37.1

everybody else. So even more reasons to sign up. You get to listen before everybody else. So

0:38.3

even more reasons to sign up. Just go to plus.npr.org for details. We'll be back with a regular

0:45.1

episode of The Indicator on Monday.

0:53.1

John Cohen, a veteran journalist who covers global health, was on a reporting trip last month in southern Africa.

1:00.9

One of his stops, a local health clinic in the small country of Lesotho.

1:05.7

John says in the waiting room, you could see how cuts to US HIV AIDS funding are already playing out

1:12.7

there.

1:13.7

The room, he said, was jam-packed with pregnant women.

1:17.7

They were waiting at a minimum, at a minimum four hours to see anyone.

1:23.0

And most of them were going to be there from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m.

1:26.5

John says the clinic had been cut off from some of the U.S. funds it depended on,

1:31.6

so it had to let go of staff driving up wait times.

1:36.2

And without that personnel, he says the clinic also stopped testing these women for HIV.

1:42.1

Lesotho has one of the highest rates of HIV prevalence among adults in the world, around 18%

...

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