In a prerecorded video statement sent to the Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (originally, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization), Health and Human Services Secretary Robert “Lysenko” Kennedy, Jr., said that the U.S. will no longer donate to the international program which provides half the world’s children with access to vaccines. In 2022, the U.S. pledged $2.5 billion in funding through 2030.
Complaining about the Vaccine Alliance’s “zeal to promote universal vaccination,” Kennedy claimed, “When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem.” Unless Gavi changes its ways, it will receive no more funding, said Secretary “Gold Standard Science™” Kennedy.
But the only example he cited of Gavi supposedly ignoring science was that it uses doses of the DTP vaccine instead of the DTaP vaccine that has replaced it in most developed countries. (Kennedy cited one study of about 1,000 children in Guinea-Bissau, which he claims was written by “five internationally revered deities of vaccine research.")
A 2022 article published by Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism site does not particularly differentiate between the two when celebrating the overall decrease in childhood vaccinations, including “noticeably lower uptake of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccines (DTaP or DTP).”
In any event, Gavi will no longer receive U.S. funding for measles, polio, and other immunizations.
The Gates Foundation has stepped in to increase funding in light of the U.S. cutoff and the U.K.’s reduction in funding to the institution that protects children from measles, polio, and other diseases. Gavi says its immunizations have prevented some 18 million deaths since its founding in 2000.
It should be noted that Kennedy justly denounced in his video statement the actions taken to censor social media accounts that questioned vaccines. Dialogue is the way forward, not banning expression of ideas considered to be untrue.
