Trump assault on USAID leaves plant that makes peanut butter for malnourished kids scrambling

[highplainsdem]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/politics/usaid-contracts-children-food-aid/index.html

MANA Nutrition makes a special kind of peanut butter paste that many humanitarian aid workers are familiar with. It is fortified with milk and essential vitamins, packed with calories and sent to severely malnourished children around the world, including some countries in Africa.

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In normal times, Moore’s plant produces 10 pouches of the lifesaving paste every second. Each small bag contains 500 calories’ worth of the special peanut butter — which does not require refrigeration or additional preparation — and is labeled “RUTF” for “Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.”

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In their warehouse, Moore said, there are around 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded RUTF ready to be shipped out. He estimates that if USAID doesn’t pay MANA for those boxes, he will have at least $10 million in wasted peanut butter pouches on his hands. And that doesn’t include an additional $14 million in reimbursements from the federal government that he was already waiting for. He is unsure whether or when he will get paid.

Erin Boyd, a USAID nutrition adviser who was laid off from the agency in January, told CNN it is not an overstatement to say that children will die as a result of the decimation of USAID and funding for RUTF.

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Saw this story after a tweet from Jon Favreau commenting on Mina Kimes of ESPN saying she'd been thinking about this story all day.

Favreau's tweet:

Kids will die because Elon Musk starved them of food we already paid for

[Blues Heron]

1. Elon is committing mass murder in plain sight - he will be charged and locked up for this eventually

[highplainsdem]

4. I hope he'll be prosecuted for this.

[Karadeniz]

2. Find a way to give them to schools in impoverished areas.

[highplainsdem]

3. The article explains that because of the labeling, it can't legally be distributed except through USAID.