“The Enrichment of Mexico’s Armed Forces at the Cost of Childhood Cancer Care”

During In the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the enrichment of the Armed Forces has reached unprecedented levels, at the cost of unprecedented cuts in the budget for care of serious illnesses, such as childhood cancer.

A review carried out by Reforma of the quarterly report of the Ministry of Finance showed that while the federal government increases the trust funds of the Army and the Navy, the amounts it allocates to care for childhood cancer, breast cancer and other health items drop to record lows.

In its trusts, the Sedena already accumulates 109 thousand 330 million pesos. But just in December 2022 it had much less than half: 42 thousand 600 million pesos. Counting the money that Semar has, the Armed Forces have 134 billion in their trusts.

The Fund for Protection against Catastrophic Expenses, which is allocated to expenses such as childhood cancer, had 10 billion pesos in the past six-year term. At the beginning of his six-year term, AMLO gave him only 300 million, but in 2022 he gave him only 15 million.

Now, through INSABI and the Health Fund for Well-being, childhood cancer received only 52 million in the second half of 2022.

This, while the president accused parents of children with cancer of lying about the shortage of medicines.

According to data from México Evalúa, also cited by Reforma, breast cancer has suffered a very severe cut in attention in this government. In 2021 it only obtained 170 million pesos, while in 2015 it had 2 thousand 260 million.

But the case of childhood cancer is worse, since in 2021 only 15 million pesos were allocated to it, in contrast to 2012, which had 504 million.