Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday that the United States would not donate to Gavi, a global vaccine alliance, unless and until the organization took steps to “re-earn the public’s trust.”
Kennedy’s criticism of the global body was rooted primarily in its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he made that abundantly clear in a video he sent to the Gavi pledging summit – in which he accused the organization of silencing dissent over the highly controversial COVID vaccines and pushing them despite concerns about their safety, per POLITICO.
“When the science was inconvenient, Gavi ignored the science,” Kennedy said, arguing that if the United States was going to continue funding the organization, they would have to do better in the future. He also accused Gavi of coordinating with the World Health Organization (WHO) to “recommend best practices for social media companies to silence dissenting views, to stifle free speech and legitimate questions during that period.”
“I call on Gavi today to re-earn the public trust and to justify the $8 billion that America has provided in funding since 2001. And I’ll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously: Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms,” Kennedy declared. “Until that happens, the United States won’t contribute more to Gavi.”
The pledging summit, which is being held in Brussels, hopes to raise $9 billion in funding for the next five years — 2026-2030, but the approximately $300 million the United States provides on an annual basis is what is in question.
“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 presentation. “Business as usual is over, unaccountable and opaque policymaking is over. I invite all of you to join us in a new era of evidence-based medicine, old-standard science and integrity.”
Kennedy’s announcement follows earlier reports that suggested President Donald Trump’s administration planned to cut funding to Gavi — although they planned to continue funding key grants for things like natural disaster response, HIV, and tuberculosis medications.