https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/06/25/g-s1-74554/rfk-jr-vaccine-safety-gavi
The international vaccine agency, Gavi, has strongly rejected Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'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's 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, shows 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 Kennedy, who said the U.S. would halt its contributions to Gavi, the international vaccine alliance.
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 that the organization's "utmost concern is the safety and health of children" and that it rejected 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."
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."
>>1416156 (OP)The nationwide brain drain this asshole is causing by firing so many good scientists is going to take decades to fix.
>>1416156 (OP)Republicans represent the dark side of the force, Luke. Come into the light, luke. Jedi knight. Chuck Schumer is waiting there for you.
Let Bill Gates pay for it. The government should only be paying for Americans to be vaccinated and unvaccinated foreigners shouldn't be allowed in to begin with
>>1416160Won't get fixed as all as long as Republicans are competitive in national elections. Nobody's gonna fucking move here when they could lose their career in 4 years.
>>1416485>as long as Republicans are competitive in national elections.Good thing they're shooting themselves in the foot right now by trying to privatize things like the weather service.
>>1416160Good, get em out. Scientists and colleges have been responsible for the downfall of western civilization. We need more traditional values like community and church.
>>1416156 (OP)Anyone with a brain can tell that there is something fishy about vaccines and modern medicine. They want to convince us that injecting poison into your body can somehow heal you? Give me a break. We are not sheeple. The only cure to disease is natural immunity.
>>1416498>muh downfall of western civilizationHow do you people always fall for this meme?
>>1416160Oh, I don't think it's ever going to be fixed. The anti-intellectualism in America has been running for decades.
>>1416498>The only cure to disease is natural immunity.If only there was some way we could give people all the parts of the virus their body has to learn to fight off, but not the parts that can actually make them sick. But that technology is generations away...
Reminder to everyone that all antivaxxers are either legitimately stupid, trolling because they're on someone's payroll, or doing it for free. Whatever the case, all of their shitty posts must be reported en masse for violating Global Rules 3 & 6.
>>1416498>Scientists and colleges have been responsible for the downfall of western civilization>They want to convince us that injecting poison into your body can somehow heal you?Western civilization has known the dose makes the poison for hundreds if not thousands of years
>Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die Dosis macht, dass ein Ding kein Gift ist.
>>1416510I think it's safe to say it has never been this bad (in the USA).
Lysenkoists are running the country.
>>1416558at least lysenkoism produced grafting, this is just going to kill people
>>1416558For sure, but we didn't get here out of nowhere.
>>1416563Grafting was known about before Lysenko by hundreds upon hundreds of years
>>1416485>Nobody's gonna fucking move here when they could lose their career in 4 years.This
one of the most damaging things Trump does is setting a lot of precedents that erode trust in the US long term.
Just look at the US defense industry and alliance structure. From here on out defense planers around the world will think thrice about buying weapons from the US beyond what's absolutely necessary.
>>1416498>Scientists and colleges have been responsible for the downfall of western civilizationLmao. They are one of the pillars of western civilization. Every convenience you enjoy today wouldn't be possible without them.
>inb4 science used to be good and got infiltrated by communist jews or something
>>1416156 (OP)Gavi sounds like some fictional evil organization.
