RFK Jr. says U.S. will stop funding global vaccine group over ‘vaccine safety’ issues

The international vaccine agency, Gavi, has strongly rejected HHS Secretary Kennedy’s accusations that it was not following scientific data on vaccines, after he said the U.S. would halt all contributions unless the body made changes to its practices.

Kennedy remarks were made at a Gavi pledging summit in Brussels on Wednesday, where countries and philanthropies promise to deliver funds. A video of Kennedy’s remarks, first reported by Politico and later posted by The New York Times, show him praising Gavi for its mission of making medicine affordable to everyone but then pivoting to criticisms. He says the group “ignores the science” when it comes to vaccine safety and calls on Gavi to “re-earn the public trust” before the U.S. would reconsider its decision to end U.S. contributions.

Supporters of global vaccines for children are on high alert after published remarks made by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who said the U.S. would halt its contributions to Gavi, the international vaccine alliance.

Gavi’s record

The international agency, established in 2000, says it has played a role in vaccinating 1.1 billion children against a long list of potentially debilitating diseases from polio to malaria to mpox to measles, and claims credit for saving 20 million lives. Global health experts say Gavi is instrumental in getting vaccinations to lower-resource countries, providing cash to buy vaccines and support for disease outbreak response.

The U.S. has been one of the largest donors to Gavi, funding about 13% of the agency’s budget. Under the Biden Administration, the U.S. pledged $2.53 billion starting in September 2022 through the year 2030.

In a statement, Gavi said in a statement that the organization’s “utmost concern is the safety and health of children” and rejected Secretary Kennedy’s accusations that it was not following scientific data on vaccines.

“Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent, and independent process. This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities,” the statement said.

Possible impacts of defunding

Kennedy’s position would not be the first time that President Trump’s team has sought to reduce U.S. support for the agency. The administration cut more than a billion dollars in funding to Gavi as part of its foreign assistance shakeup earlier this year.

But Kennedy’s words nonetheless spark concern that the motive for such cuts isn’t just reducing the U.S. deficit, says Dr. William Moss, a pediatrician and professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. He is the executive director of the school’s International Vaccine Access Center.

“I think [Kennedy] is bringing his long standing views based on conspiracy theories and misinformation and disinformation around vaccines,” Moss said.

“There’s no doubt that we want to ensure that the vaccines that we use are as safe and effective as possible. We all agree with that,” Moss said. “But to put up barriers and to withdraw funding based on misguided concerns about vaccine safety is very tragic, and I don’t think Kennedy is speaking for most Americans with this type of decision.”

Without U.S. funding, Gavi will survive, Moss says. It has other donors like the United Kingdom, and the Gates Foundation, but it will have to scale back its operations. In fact, this week for the replenishment conference where Kennedy reportedly spoke, the Gates Foundation announced a new, $1.6 billion pledge and encouraged others to up their donations, “warning that without renewed support, children could be left vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases.” (The Gates Foundation is a funder of NPR and this blog.)

Moss predicts that the loss of all U.S. funding will likely mean “fewer vaccine introductions into many low and middle income countries. We’ll see a scale back of some of the large measles and rubella vaccination campaigns that Gavi supports, and some of the disease outbreak response that Gavi supports.”

The impact of the administration’s decision to stop funding Gavi will be felt by Americans, he adds. Although the organization does not work in the United States, a reduced ability to provide measles vaccines in other countries could have a domestic impact.

“We always say measles is the canary in the coal mine and identifies weaknesses in immunization services,” Moss says. “We’ll see continued, or more frequent importations of measles virus here in the United States.”

In an email statement, Janeen Madan Keller, deputy director of global health policy and a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, characterized the Trump administration’s decision to eliminate funding as “short sighted and misguided …. The impact of these cuts on children in the world’s poorest countries will be devastating, likely leading to an uptick in disease and death from vaccine-preventable diseases. Infectious diseases — like measles and polio — know no borders, meaning under-immunization anywhere can have consequences everywhere.” 

Freelance journalist Fran Kritz contributed reporting to this story.