Sadly this sort of things happen way too often in the supposed richest country on Earth and the home of the free.

Sadly this sort of things happen way too often in the supposed richest country on Earth and the home of the free.
As a doctor in training more than 20 years ago, she cared for a teen boy who died from a degenerative neurological condition linked to his #measles #infection as an infant, when he was too young to be vaccinated.
“There are really bad, scary things that we can protect our #children from,” she said.
#NewMexico officials have tallied 65 cases & one death of an unvaccinated adult. These are the first #deaths from #measles in the #UnitedStates since 2015.
Dr. Alex Cvijanovich, a pediatrician in Albuquerque, said NM has one of the nation’s highest rates of childhood #poverty & says she is terrified about what could happen if the #children’s #vaccine program is scaled back.
#Congress created the #Vaccines for #Children program in 1993 after a US #measles #epidemic had killed dozens of children a few years earlier. The #CDC found
that >50% of the children who got measles then were unvaccinated. The #cost of the #immunization was a primary reason families had skipped the shot even though they were seeing doctors regularly….
The #Vaccines for #Children program funds #vaccine purchases from drug manufacturers including Merck & GlaxoSmithKline at a discount, while state #health departments implement the program & enroll #medical providers. A dose of MMR vaccine costs about $26 under the program compared to $95 in the private sector, acc/to #CDC price list.
#Trump cuts threaten free #vaccine program for #kids amid #measles #outbreak
The #Vaccines for #Children program is funded by the U.S. Centers for #Disease Control & #Prevention [#CDC] & administered by state #PublicHealth officials. With an annual budget of roughly $5 billion, the vaccines program is responsible for about half the jabs administered to #US children every year.
#Aporophobia #HealthInequity #poverty #SocialCleansing #EconomicDiscrimination #law #USpol
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-cuts-threaten-free-vaccine-program-kids-amid-measles-outbreak-2025-04-23/
An overhaul of the #housing agency comes on the heels of a congressional deal to fund the government through Sept that increased some housing spending yet did not keep pace with rising rents & the growing demand for federal #aid. The #funding gap could result in about 32,000 #voucher recipients soon losing access to federal #housing aid… on top of additional cuts once funding runs out in a pandemic-era program that expanded voucher availability.
…The White House also plans to dismantle a key office in the #housing agency that helps communities recover from deadly #NaturalDisasters, a move that could slow much-needed #emergency #aid. Separately, #Trump issued an #ExecutiveOrder last month eliminating a decades-old, government wide commission meant to coordinate the federal response to #homelessness.
…The expected cuts to #RentalAssistance reflect #Trump’s broader desire to *shrink the footprint of government & its reach into Americans’ lives* [more like kill the #poor, party with the #rich, eradicate the middle], a project that includes sharp #cuts to federal #antipoverty programs viewed as *too generous or wasteful*.
#Project2025’s #RussVought, #Trump’s director of the Office of Management & Budget [#OMB], previously endorsed an end to the federal #voucher program. He [falsely] wrote in 2022 that the #Section8 program in particular “brings with it crime, decreased property values, & results in dependency & subsidized irresponsibility.”
Federal #voucher programs currently provide assistance to ~2.3M #LowIncome #families, acc/to the govt’s estimates, who enroll through their local public-#housing authorities. The #aid is part of a broader universe of #RentalAssistance programs that are set to exceed $54B this fiscal year. But the annual demand for these subsidies is far greater than available funds, creating a sizable wait list as rents are rising nationally.
…the expected overhaul would most likely amount to more than just a technical change, resulting in fewer federal dollars for #LowIncome #families on top of additional cuts planned for the rest of the Dept of #Housing & Urban Development [#HUD]. On Thurs, the #Trump admin took the first steps toward potentially selling the agency’s HQ in Washington.
Admin ofcls recently discussed cutting or canceling out the #vouchers & other #RentalAssistance programs & potentially replacing them with a more *limited* system of #housing grants, perhaps sent to states, acc/to 3 people familiar with the matter…. The overhaul would be included in #Trump’s new #budget, which is expected to be sent to #Congress in the coming weeks.
The #Trump White House is considering deep cuts to federal #housing programs, including a sweeping overhaul of #aid to #LowIncome #families, in a reconfiguration that could jeopardize millions of Americans’ continued access to #RentalAssistance funds.
#law #aporophobia #classism #caste #EconomicDiscrimination
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/us/politics/housing-aid-hud-federal-budget.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=p&pvid=A1DB4796-EA62-4919-9C07-82BAC2B0A4BE
#Trump's highest tariff will kill tiny African kingdom of #Lesotho
A 50% reciprocal #trade tariff on Lesotho, the highest levy on #Trump's long list of target economies, will kill the tiny Southern African kingdom that Trump ridiculed last month, an economic analyst there said.
Lesotho, which Trump described in March as a country "nobody has ever heard of", is one of the world's poorest nations with a GDP of just over $2B.
#geopolitics #economy #economy #Aporophobia
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/trump-slaps-tiny-african-kingdom-lesotho-with-highest-tariff-all-2025-04-03/
That's how the volcanic Australian territory of #HeardIsland & #McDonaldIslands in the #Antarctic ended up with a 10% tariff. The #penguins got off lightly, you might say.
But #Madagascar - one of the poorest nations in the world w/GDP per capita of just over $500 - meanwhile faces a 47% tariff on the modest $733M of exports of vanilla, metals & apparel that it did with the US last year.
Disgusting: The majority of the nations listed for “reciprocal” #tariffs on the 8-pg document distributed to reporters by the #Trump admin are #poor, #developing economies. They include some of the world’s poorest nations -- #SouthSudan, #Burundi & the #CentralAfricanRepublic -- as well as countries in the throes of #war, notably #Sudan.
So if someone murders a houseless individual it is not a #hatecrime? It sure looks like hate-motivated. #Aporophobia is unfortunately still socially acceptable enough that crimes motivated by it don't get the same legal and social disapproval as racist or homophobic attacks.