The Crimson estimates today that up to 400 people may have died while waiting for AIDS drugs from Harvard—drugs that never reached them, because Larry Summers delayed the purchase of those drugs for five months after Harvard received grant money from the federal government.

As reporter May Habib puts it, “Mass Hall delayed the funding until it imposed a structure that placed more administrative control over the grant in the hands of University officials.”

For “University officials,” you can substitute the words “Larry Summers.”

(Come to think of it, you can substitute “Larry Summers” for the words “Mass Hall,” too, so that the sentence should really read: “Larry Summers delayed the funding until he imposed a structure that placed more administrative control over the grant in the hands of Larry Summers.”)

But Summers has done a remarkable job of distancing himself from this story. He’s never been quoted (that I’ve seen) on any aspect of it. Instead, he’s gotten provost Stephen Hyman and even Corporation member Jamie Houghton to speak to the press. He even has his new spokesman, someone named John Longbrake, speaking on the record. Everyone but the ultimate authority.

As I’ve noted before, Hyman has given a multiplicity of excuses to explain the five-month delay, one of which directly contradicts a quote from Jamie Houghton, the Corporation’s senior fellow.

This Crimson article adds yet another: “Hyman has said that the University was concerned that anti-retroviral drugs purchased through the grant…would end up on the black market and that patients who began treatment would have to stop because of shortages or supply chain problems.”

So…the logical option is just to let them die?

The most heartbreaking thing about this article is the plaintive quality of the quotes from those who had hands-on contact with the African patients. “They basically held us hostage,” Nigerian program director Robert Murphy said of Mass Hall. “They didn’t draw down on the funds, they delayed until the very end….”

Meanwhile, many of the health care workers in Nigeria were working without pay for months because Harvard wouldn’t initiate the program…but they knew that without their help, people would die.