$9.7M in US-funded contraceptives slated for incineration this week

For months, $9.7 million of contraceptives have been sitting in a Belgian warehouse. They were purchased by the U.S. government for women in developing countries — but as early as today, those contraceptives will be driven to an incineration site to be destroyed. “They’ve said that this isn’t in alignment with their values,” said a congressional aide who visited that warehouse, referring to the Trump administration. “They’re trying to destroy it all by the end of the month, and I saw some boxes there that aren’t expiring until 2031.” Between today and the end of July, two loaded trucks will be taking the contraceptives to and from a French incineration site, according to several sources familiar with the matter. It’s a process that is expected to take up to 13 days to complete, with many of the contraceptives — which include hormonal intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and birth control implants — requiring double-incineration. The disposal will cost the U.S. government another $155,000, two congressional aides said, though The Washington Post — which first reported on the stockpile in early June — put the figure at $167,000. “This is an estimated $10 million worth of commodities that could save lives that’s going to go up in smoke,” said Alan Bornbush, who was a former division chief for USAID’s family planning program until he retired in early March. “That’s not a trivial number of women and girls who could very well die now as a consequence of this.” It’s unclear exactly which countries the contraceptives were meant to reach. But those most reliant on the U.S. government for family planning procurement were also some of those with the highest birth rates and weakest health systems. That includes the Democratic Republic of Congo and Niger, where women have an average of more than six children each, according to World Bank data. “Just because the world’s biggest donor of family planning is pulling out, demand doesn’t stop,” said Sarah Shaw, the head of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, one of the largest providers of reproductive health care worldwide. “Demand is still there. Demand is still growing.” MSI tried to pay for the shipment and distribution of the supplies in Belgium, but said the offer was rejected. ‘Singled out from the get-go’ Within days of taking office, U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits U.S. aid to flow to nonprofits that provide, counsel, or advocate for abortion services — even if they are funded with non-U.S. dollars. Trump spoke at the nation's largest anti-abortion rally in January, telling crowds in Washington, D.C. that he would end a “radical Democrat push” for “unlimited abortion on demand.” And after he shut down USAID, an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that by April, 85% of all the agency’s family planning programs and reproductive health programs had been terminated. “Family planning was singled out from the get-go,” said Bornbush, who added that his team was “dead in the water” from the day family planning was effectively excluded from the administration’s lifesaving humanitarian waiver process. But for years, the U.S. government had been the world’s largest bilateral donor of family and reproductive health services, providing some $600 million for the sector annually, according to an analysis by KFF. USAID accounted for one-third of the global procurer spend on condoms, orals, and injectables — and a major way it did so was through the $9.5 billion Global Health Chain Supply Program. That was how the warehoused contraceptives were procured, according to several sources familiar with the program. Created to ensure the reliable delivery of health commodities ranging from antiretrovirals to birth control implants, the program was established in 2016 and meant to last 10 years. For years, it has tried to strengthen national health systems, with the U.S. government procuring health commodities and delivering them to countries as in-kind donations, in addition to partnering with ministries of health to train staff, upgrade inventory tracking, and create country-led systems. As of Sept. 30, 2024, the program had delivered nearly $350 million of reproductive health commodities since its start in 2016, the vast majority of which went to countries in Africa. But by March 2025, the family planning component of that procurement came to a halt. At the time, 21 countries had pending USAID-funded related orders, nearly all of which were subsequently canceled by the Trump administration, according to an analysis by the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. Because of the Global Health Supply Chain Program’s breadth, it also touched organizations that weren’t taking U.S. government funding, such as MSI Reproductive Choices. “Even though we were not eligible for [U.S.-funded] commodities, they provided a huge amount of flex in the supply chain,” said Shaw. “So in situations where we’ve got a shortage, and a national government knows that they have new stock coming in, they’ll say: We’ll lend you six weeks of stock because we know it will get replenished later down the line, and vice versa. … Now, nobody can borrow and nobody can lend, because they know they’re never going to get it back. “ There’s also the issue of warehouses. By April 2025, the Clinton Health Access Initiative found that one-third of countries the organization surveyed — 4 out of 12 — could not access contraceptives held in warehouses owned or operated by USAID in their countries. The cost of those blocked supplies, according to the organization, ranged from $1.6 million to $3 million per country. “Destroying U.S. government-purchased contraceptive commodities is a textbook example of waste, fraud, and abuse,” said Craig Lasher, the director of U.S. government relations at Population Action International. Zooming out The decimation of contraceptives — and the cancellation of family planning programs across the world — will come just days after Trump’s rescissions package was signed into law. The government now will claw back $7.9 billion in previously approved foreign aid, including $500 million in funding for family planning and reproductive health programs. That is 82% of the U.S. government’s total spend on the sector last year, according to an analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for sexual and reproductive health. In the White House’s original rescissions request, the administration referred to those initiatives — along with LGBTQ+ activities and “equity programs” — as “antithetical to American interests,” stating that they “worsen the lives of women and children.” “This rescission proposal aligns with the Administration's efforts to eliminate wasteful USAID foreign assistance programs,” the initial request stated. “Enacting the rescission would reinstate focus on appropriate health and life spending.” But another analysis from the Guttmacher Institute found that the Trump administration’s cuts to family planning and reproductive health services will result in 34,000 preventable maternal deaths, along with 17.1 million unintended pregnancies. Sixty percent of those deaths, the organization found, will occur in emergency contexts such as Syria and Haiti. “Getting reproductive health care is incredibly personal, and it's based on the trust that you have with the system, the provider and commodities,” said Beth Schlachter, MSI’s senior director of U.S. engagement. “That’s a really fraught, fragile relationship. And so things that break that trust — like when you rely on a method, and that method isn’t there, or you rely on the clinic, the clinic doesn’t show up — all of those things are hard to rebuild once it’s lost.” It’s not just U.S.-funded contraceptives at risk. The State Department recently destroyed 500 metric tons of emergency food aid in the Middle East, stating that it had expired. But for months, federal workers had been warning that the food — enough to feed 1.5 million children for a week — was about to go to waste. That’s according to The Atlantic, which published a story about the food last week. In a request for comment about the to-be-torched contraceptives, the State Department instead sent a response about the already-incinerated food, telling Devex that “USAID has had to destroy commodities under previous administrations with similar circumstances.” “We always want to avoid destroying any commodities and do our best to find alternate uses for it,” a spokesperson said via email. Earlier this month, U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Brian Schatz — Democrats from New Hampshire and Hawaii, respectively — introduced a bill to block further destruction of already-purchased commodities. The legislation aims to ensure food, medicine, and medical devices are delivered to intended recipients before they spoil or expire, and that destruction would not occur unless “all efforts to sell or donate them have been exhausted.” And last week, Democrats in the House of Representatives announced their intention to introduce the same, noting both the contraceptives and food in a press release. “That’s common sense — and the humane thing to do — for American taxpayers and for vulnerable communities around the world,” the lawmakers in the House said in a statement, released last Friday. But with the decimation of the contraceptives planned for as early as today and as late as the end of the month, it’s unlikely that either bill could take hold before they are destroyed.