Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the US is cutting funding for Gavi

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a prerecorded video speech for attendees of Gavi’s high-level pledging conference today in Brussels, stating that the U.S. won’t contribute to the organization anymore until it works to “re-earn the public trust.” But some are questioning whether the Trump administration can do this — as Congress is tasked with allocating funding to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Kennedy’s video announcement, seen by Devex, comes after months of uncertainty on whether the U.S. government would fulfill a pledge made by former U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration last June to provide at least $1.58 billion in order to support Gavi’s work from 2026 through 2030. The U.S. reneging on that pledge is a major blow to the leading international organization tasked with providing vaccines to lower-income countries. The U.S. is one of Gavi’s six original donor countries, and since 2001, it has provided $3.9 billion in direct contributions to the organization and another $4 billion to COVAX — the mechanism to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to lower-income countries. The U.S.’s annual support to Gavi has steadily increased over the years — rising from $48 million in 2001 to $300 million last year. The U.S. government accounts for around 13% of Gavi's annual funding, making it the organization's third-largest contributor. In his speech, Kennedy asked the organization to “justify” the funding America has provided. According to The New York Times, Gavi estimates that without U.S. funding, over the next five years, 75 million children would not receive their vaccinations and more than 1.2 million children in low- and middle-income countries would die as a result. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s reported decision to cut off support for Gavi is reckless and deadly. The Trump administration is turning its back on a program that has helped vaccinate more than a billion children and save over 17 million lives—while Kennedy spreads lies about science, safety and one of the world’s most effective public health efforts,” Liza Barrie, Public Citizen’s global vaccines access campaign director, wrote in a statement. “This isn’t about protecting children. It’s about abandoning them. Choosing to walk away from a program that saves lives—knowing full well what the consequences will be—isn’t just reckless. It’s cruel.” The Brussels pledging event, co-hosted by the European Union and the Gates Foundation, is the final culmination of a year of fundraising for Gavi, where it secured some $9 billion in pledges — out of a total budget request of $11.9 billion. It will take the organization time to detangle donor pledges to see what is new money and what is COVID-19 money that has been recommitted — but regardless, it’s fallen short of its goal. The organization sought at least $9 billion in new donor funding to support its work from 2026 through 2030. The organization placed the total budget for this period at $11.9 billion. Can the Trump administration do this? While an American presidential administration will make suggestions around what the national budget will include, it’s ultimately up to Congress to make the decisions. And that’s historically how funding to Gavi has been allocated — which in recent years has included some $300 million a year. Gavi received a $300 million payment from the U.S. government last December under the Biden administration, and this year, Congress approved an additional $300 million in the fiscal year 2025 funding bill. Public Citizen’s Barrie called upon Congress to protect Gavi funding already allocated in the fiscal year 2025 budget — which the Trump administration has asked Congress to claw back through its rescission proposal, and in the fiscal year 2026 budget — of which the Trump administration excluded funding for Gavi in its budget request. “If the government were to follow through on RFK's statement it would [be] a major policy shift and would go against long-standing bipartisan support for funding for the organization,” Josh Michaud, associate director for global health policy at KFF, a health policy think tank, told Devex. “The impact of no more U.S. funding for Gavi would be extremely negative for global health, especially for child survival.” “As an aside, the statement also calls into question what role Congress would play, given that if Congress appropriates funds for Gavi the administration would theoretically not be in a position to stop that funding. However, we have seen it hasn't stopped the Administration from cutting other foreign assistance and global health funding that was appropriated by Congress,” he added. Elizabeth Hoffman, executive director for North America at ONE, echoed this and called Kennedy’s reported comments “misleading.” “Congress alone holds the power to fund Gavi, which it has done repeatedly, with strong bipartisan support,” she said. ‘Vaccine safety’ Kennedy has been a long-standing vaccine skeptic — something that has garnered him criticism in the U.S., but he told members of Congress that he is not “anti-vaccine” during his appointment hearing. Earlier this month, he fired the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which is the panel that guides the CDC’s vaccine decisions. He then appointed new members, including several vaccine skeptics. In his speech on Wednesday, Kennedy told Gavi to “start taking vaccine safety seriously” and criticized the organization's recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines and accused it of silencing dissenting opinions during the pandemic. “In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety. When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem,” Kennedy said in his video address. “Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms. Until that happens, the United States won’t contribute more to Gavi.” Gavi responded to Kennedy’s comments, saying vaccine safety is the organization's “utmost” concern and that its vaccine portfolio is aligned with recommendations from WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization that use a “rigorous, transparent, and independent process” before recommending them. Kennedy specifically criticized Gavi’s provision of DTP immunization — which protects against three infectious diseases that primarily kill children, including diphtheria, neonatal tetanus, and pertussis. He referred to a disputed study that links the vaccines to higher infant mortality in girls. There are two DTP vaccines, Gavi explained in its statement: DTPw — which has a stronger immune response but can cause temporary side effects, and DTaP, which has fewer reactions but evidence suggests offers shorter protection and requires more frequent booster shots. Gavi noted that the difference in the use of the two vaccines is due to the realities on the ground in lower- and higher-income countries and that the organization has full confidence in them. The organization explained that experts recommend DTPw for infants in high-risk settings — such as lower-income countries, where health systems are less equipped to offer booster doses. On the other hand, DTaP is often used in high-income countries where the disease burden is lower and health systems are equipped to provide boosters. “In places where access to hospitals is limited and disease risk is high, the stronger protection from DTPw against these life-threatening diseases far outweighs the temporary side-effects this vaccine may cause, such as fever or swelling at the injection site (which are signs the immune system is responding),” the organization wrote, adding that the DTPw vaccine has been administered to millions of children for decades. Kennedy said in the speech that “the developed world replaced [the DTPw vaccine] a long time ago with a much safer DTaP vaccine.” But he also praised Gavi, saying, “There's much that I admire about Gavi, especially its commitment to making medicine affordable to all the world's people.” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said during the Brussels event that “drastic cuts in aid, coupled with misinformation about the safety of vaccines, threaten to unwind decades of progress.” Gavi decided not to include Kennedy’s address in the livestreamed version of the pledging conference. Months of uncertainty The U.S. government had given mixed messages in recent months on how it intended to engage with Gavi moving forward. Traditionally, Gavi U.S. funding came through a USAID grant. But in the midst of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and foreign aid more broadly, in March, the administration distributed a spreadsheet to Congress that listed for termination a $2.6 billion award to Gavi from 2022 through 2030 — some of which was already obligated by Congress but also including future funding based on Biden’s pledge. At the time, Gavi told Devex it hadn’t received a termination letter from the U.S. government. But the U.S. recently nominated Mark Kevin Lloyd to the Gavi board — which was approved. A former Trump campaigner and tea party activist, who currently serves as the assistant to the administrator for global health at USAID — tasked with running the global health programming. The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request also excluded funding for Gavi. In its justification for its exclusion, the White House wrote that Gavi “reports a reserve of over $7.0 billion in its most recent statutory financial statements.” A Gavi spokesperson previously told Devex that it’s considered best practice by the organization — and is mandated by its board — to keep a nine-month operational buffer to ensure it's financially stable and can fulfill commitments it's made to countries. “Any other amounts held in Gavi accounts are spoken for,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that given the high demand for their programs, they will use the funding already allocated through 2025, but in order to deliver on its next five years of programing, it will require that additional $9 billion in new donor funding. Dr. Atul Gawande, who held Lloyd’s position at USAID during the Biden administration, wrote on the social media website X in response to Kennedy’s remarks that the end to the U.S. funding Gavi is a “travesty and a nightmare.” “It lowers vaccine costs for the world, has vaccinated 1B children, and averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year — and RFK Jr will be personally responsible,” he wrote.