I had a moving/chilling/inspiring conversation with two experts in global children’s health about the President’s Emergency Relief for AIDS (PEPFAR) program, which has gotten hurt/lost in the chaos of cleaning up USAID/foreign aid.

Please, by all means, get rid of real waste, fraud, and abuse, as they say. But the U.S.’s role in preventing and treating AIDS in Africa saves lives and has changed culture. It’s not alarmist, but fact, to realize that babies will die – are dying – because we are not getting our act together and putting PEPFAR back together.

The administration has said that PEPFAR is not meant for the chopping block, and yet, there are clinics that have closed, medicine that is not being delivered, doctors who don’t know what to say to patients, and aid workers and advocates who are helpless where an infrastructure had been working like a well-oiled machine to support, frankly, miracles and saints — and effective medicine.

Dr. Jonathan Ellen, a pediatrician who has this piece, Aid to Fight AIDS Is Money Well Spent, here on NRO. Francesca Merico is a child-health advocate in Geneva who works with the Holy See and others. We talk about what can be done to restore PEPFAR and why that really needs to happen.

Watch here: