Rony Brauman, president of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) France from 1982 to 1994, now director of studies at the Centre de Réflexion sur l'Action et les Savoirs Humanitaires (CRASH), under the auspices of MSF, says in an interview that cuts ot US foreign aid reveal "the enormity of American involvement in the aid system" and "highlight a fundamental imbalance in the system." Heriticizes the "brutality" of a "decision that encourages sectarian nationalism and hostility to foreigners."

The immediate tangible consequence is the dismissal of thousands of aid workers. It also means depriving hundreds of thousands of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria sufferers of medical treatment, either because stocks of medicines are no longer being distributed, or because there are no longer any staff on the ground to administer them. With cuts to the UN's Global Fund, for example, and the elimination of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (a program launched in 2003 by the White House to combat AIDS), whole areas of the fight against viruses, epidemics and pandemics are being torn to shreds. We are heading for much more intense malaria epidemics and the circulation of more resistant tuberculosis germs.

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