Is Global Health Funding a Waste of Money? My Answer After 20 Years

In 2006, I joined Partners In Health (PIH) in the remote mountains of Lesotho. After 20 years on the front lines of global health, I’m sharing the story of one patient in Lesotho who changed everything I thought I knew about medicine and policy. From the remote mountains of Lesotho to the global impact of programs like PEPFAR, this is the reality of what happens when we choose to fund health—and the devastating cost when we don’t. 00:00 What is Global Health? Moving beyond the acronyms 00:47 Arriving in Lesotho: The 2006 HIV epidemic 01:45 The "Death Sentence" era of untreated HIV 02:22 The revolution of PEPFAR and HIV treatment 03:00 Diagnosing Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) in a mountain clinic 03:22 Pathophysiology: How severe immune suppression leads to cancer 04:11 When the textbooks are wrong: A dramatic clinical worsening 05:30 Remembering the patient from Nohana 06:05 Why Global Health funding is not a "waste of money" 06:55 20 years later: How Lesotho has been transformed 07:15 The power of US government foreign aid Sources/credits: The New York Times: “What Remains of U.S.A.I.D.?” (Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Malika Khurana, Christine Zhang; June 22, 2025); CANSA: KS infographic. Clinical photos: Dr. Jonas Rigodon. #GlobalHealth #PartnersInHealth #PEPFAR #PIH #FuriousDoctors #USAID