As reported in the LA Times health blog, Booster Shots, a grim economy is making global health organizations nervous that nations and individual donors are going to back out on their financial promises.

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, has gone a step further: arguing for the US government to take back the huge bailouts to Wall Street that went to pay CEO bonuses and to put it directly into the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

As Booster Shots reported:

“Calling the bonuses “unbelievably egregious,” Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute said: “Those bonuses are being paid out of our bailout funds… I suggest the U.S. government reclaim that funding and put the money into the Global Fund immediately.””

There is no doubt who needs the “bailout” more and that the abuse of funds given to Wall Street to pay corporate bonuses, rather than help the economy, was an ethical breach beyond reproach. Sachs is right: let’s some of that money to good use and save lives.

Summer Johnson, PhD