Trump administration to dispense $600M for vaccines RFK Jr. held up

The departments of State and Health and Human Services confirmed Wednesday they are releasing $600 million Congress appropriated to an international partnership that helps developing countries buy and distribute vaccines.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has held up the funding for the group, Gavi, for months.

Kennedy said Gavi, which the U.S. co-founded a quarter century ago and has long backed, was using dangerous and outdated shots. The departments said in a statement Wednesday that Gavi committed to work towards transitioning mercury-containing vaccines and expanding access to newer, mercury-free alternatives.

The United States has mostly phased out shots containing the mercury preservative thimerosal, but it's harder to replace in parts of the world without ready access to refrigeration. Mainstream vaccine safety experts have said the shots Gavi is using are safe.

Kennedy has sought to remove the last-remaining shots used in the U.S. with thimerosal, multi-dose vials of the flu shot, and the departments said in a statement that "the Administration believes reducing reliance on mercury-containing vaccines, where suitable alternatives are available, is a pro-vaccine, pro-innovation policy."

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) announced on Tuesday that the State Department had agreed to disburse the money for Gavi in a statement first shared with POLITICO.

The Trump administration's announcement resolves a stalemate over the funding Congress appropriated for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years for Gavi. The $600 million was set to expire on Sept. 30.

The U.S. funding represents about 15 percent of Gavi's total yearly budget.

Gavi provides vaccines for 20 diseases, including measles, malaria and polio, to more than 50 low-income countries globally. It estimates that it's vaccinated over 1.2 billion children in the world's poorest countries, preventing more than 20.6 million potential deaths. Collins, along with her Democratic colleague Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and others, have praised the group for saving lives abroad and helping stop outbreaks from reaching the United States by controlling them at the source.

Gavi CEO Sania Nishtar warned last year that more than 1 million babies could die in the world's poorest countries if the U.S. withdrew support for the group.

But Kennedy said last year the Trump administration didn't want to fund Gavi anymore over vaccine safety concerns. While the State Department is in charge of funding for the group, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that President Donald Trump asked him to allow Kennedy to get involved in funding decisions for Gavi.

The health secretary and many of his followers believe thimerosal is likely to cause autism, a claim not supported by mainstream scientific studies.

Nonetheless, the U.S. and European countries began phasing out the preservative years ago out of an abundance of caution.

Gavi has defended its use of vaccines containing thimerosal because of its utility in the countries it serves. Nonetheless, the group offered in May to expedite a shift to shots that don't contain the ingredient, hoping to assuage Kennedy, in talks Shaheen brokered.

Gavi currently helps procure and distribute shots containing thimerosal against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b and against meningococcal meningitis.

The State Department and HHS said Wednesday that Gavi will make every effort to transition to vaccine formulations against those diseases that don't contain thimerosal.

Thimerosal's use in the U.S. has declined over the last 25 years as manufacturers reformulated their products in response to concerns raised in the late 1990s and early 2000s that it could be linked to autism. The preservative was largely removed from pediatric vaccines by 2001.

"Children in Africa, Asia, and Latin America deserve access to the same higher-quality, mercury-free vaccines, and these changes will also expand protection against additional disease strains," the State Department and HHS statement said.

Gavi, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment, already had a strategy to transition to thimerosal-free vaccines not because of concerns with the ingredient's safety, but because newer shots provide protection against more diseases or more disease strains.

The State Department and HHS acknowledged that the transition will pose challenges, as it will require vaccine "manufacturers to expand production capacity, countries to adopt newer vaccine formulations," and Gavi's board "to complete the necessary approvals," the statement from the two departments said.

The statement also noted other reforms the U.S. requested that Gavi has now made: ending the promotion and procurement of Covid-19 vaccines for routine vaccination programs and downsizing staff in its Geneva headquarters.

Gavi will also decrease funding for other partners, such as the World Health Organization, as part of the reform the U.S. requested, the two departments' statement said.

The U.S. withdrew from the WHO in January and the Trump administration has sought to deny U.S. funding for the global health body through any indirect channel.

Gavi has also committed to set up a function in its secretariat to monitor and review developments in vaccine science, including vaccine safety, the State Department and HHS statement said.