The Trump administration told The New York Times on Thursday that it had destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives destined for people in low-income countries.
But when the authorities in Belgium, responding to the report in The Times, obtained authorization to enter the warehouse that had been holding the supplies on Friday morning, the stockpile was still there, an official in the Flanders region said.
Local authorities “carried out on-site inspections this morning and found that no cargoes had been diverted for incineration,” said Tom Demeyer, a spokesman for the Flemish minister with jurisdiction over the issue.
The pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants, valued at about $9.7 million, had been purchased by the United States Agency for International Development before it was largely dismantled this year. Trump administration officials in June ordered the supplies destroyed, after the State Department said that contraception was not “lifesaving” and that the United States would no longer fund the purchase of birth control products for low-income nations.
But the contraceptives remained in the facility through the summer as international organizations tried to purchase them or take them as donations.
On Thursday, a Times reporter sent an email to the State Department via its official media-inquiry address asking if the contraceptives had been destroyed or moved. A spokeswoman for U.S.A.I.D., Rachel Semmel Cauley, replied that the contraceptives had been destroyed.
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The post Belgian Authorities Say $10 Million Supply of Birth Control Has Not Yet Been Destroyed appeared first on New York Times.
