RFK Jr will be ‘personally responsible' for childrens' deaths by halting vaccine alliance funding, experts say
The US health secretary said Wednesday that the United States would halt funding for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that has immunised more than one billion children since 2000, in a statement that has also been criticised for spreading disinformation on vaccine safety.
Gavi is a partnership between public bodies and the private sector that works to provide vaccines in many of the world's poorest countries. It has prevented an estimated 18.8 million deaths, and hosts global emergency stockpiles against Ebola, yellow fever, meningitis and cholera. The US has long been one of its major funders, and provided around 13% of its budget.
Gavi announced after a pledging event on Wednesday that it had secured more than $9bn in donations for the next five years, and would continue to chase the $11.9bn total it required.
But in a video played at the event, Kennedy said the US would no longer contribute to the organisation until it had worked to 're-earn the public trust'.
He criticised Gavi's actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, suggested it should not recommend Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women, and said it had 'neglected the key issue of vaccine safety'.
Gavi set out a detailed rebuttal to Kennedy's claims, stressing that its 'utmost concern is the health and safety of children'.
Atul Gawande, a former senior official at USAID, wrote online: 'This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year -- and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.'
Gavi's own estimates, reported by the New York Times, suggest the loss of US support may mean 75 million children miss out on routine vaccinations over the next five years and 1.2 million die as a result.
The UK government has also been criticised for lowering its funding for Gavi, although its £1.25bn ($1.7bn) pledge still made it Gavi's top donor country. Other major donors include the Gates Foundation, which committed $1.6bn, and the European Union a combined €2 billion ($2.3bn).
In his video, Kennedy particularly criticised 'whole cell' DTP vaccines provided by Gavi, which protect against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough).
The US and many richer countries, including the UK, have switched to a newer version that causes fewer short-term reactions but does not remain effective for as long, requiring more boosters. The World Health Organization says both types have 'excellent safety records'.
Dr Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and a former CDC director, said: 'Many countries choose to continue the whole cell vaccine. They may have decided this because their populations have a greater risk of serious illness, they have healthcare systems less able to deal with serious pertussis infections, or may simply have made the opposite decision – more short-term adverse reactions, better protection against pertussis.
'Calling this choice not 'taking vaccine safety seriously' is misinformation, plain and simple.'
Seth Berkley, former chief executive of Gavi, said in a post on LinkedIn that Kennedy's claims were 'a mix of misinformation and some disinformation' and 'disingenuous', adding: 'It is irresponsible to provide disinformation from a position of political power.'
A major study partly funded by Gavi and published in The Lancet this week found vaccine coverage had stalled or reversed globally, driven by persistent health inequalities and rising levels of misinformation and hesitancy.
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Hi Ugly, I recently chatted with a middle-aged co-worker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list). When I (flippantly?) suggested encouraging the friend to accept her body as it is, my co-worker said, 'Well she can't just give up!' Giving up – that's another thing we Gen X women have always tried to avoid. Like looking at our moms in sweatpants and no makeup and thinking they weren't trying to be beautiful any more. My question: are there other words to describe acceptance of your looks as they are, at any age, or are we just truly 'giving up'? – Gen Acceptance One reason talk of 'giving up' leaves a bad taste in the mouth, writes psychoanalyst Adam Phillips in his book On Giving Up, is that it 'is felt to be an ominous foreshadowing of, or reminder of, the ultimate giving up that is suicide, or just the milder version of living a kind of death-in-life'. In other words: your co-worker unconsciously believes that a woman who gives up dieting might as well be dead. Forgive me (and Phillips – and, indirectly, Freud, the father of psychoanalysis) for being dramatic. But I think it's true! Maybe doubly true when it comes to physical beauty, which has long been framed as less ornamental than essential, particularly for women and gender non-conforming people. We often think of beauty as a declaration of self, a means of survival, a signifier of societal worth. It increases our economic and social potential. It opens doors and buys grace; it affords access and attention. To fall short of it, conversely, is to edge toward a kind of cultural erasure. Naturally, when one's appearance is rewarded and/or punished like this, it starts to seem as important as life itself. Or more important. Consider a quote from a 2024 Washington Post story on the renewed popularity of tanning beds, known to heighten users' risk of skin cancer: 'I'd rather die hot than live ugly.' (A rebuttal, if I may.) This conflation of beauty and life comes up quite a few times in your question, albeit in less extreme terms. You categorize weight loss and stray hairs as some of your 'biggest concerns'. You recall worrying about your mother not wearing makeup – which only makes sense if makeup is a symbol of something more. (The will to carry on, maybe?) Your co-worker implies that giving up on thinness must mean giving up on dating, which must mean giving up on love, which, well – why bother going on, then? Sign up to Well Actually Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life after newsletter promotion This is a bit absurd. (The unconscious is nothing if not irrational!) 'The daunting association' of giving up, Phillips writes, 'has stopped us being able to think about the milder, more instructive, more promising givings up,' of which there are many. Like giving up on maintaining beauty standards, for example. The pursuit of an unrealistic, often unhealthy and ever-shifting appearance ideal is something that paradoxically 'anaesthetizes' us to life, as Phillips might say, even as we think of it as offering more life (or more opportunity). Skipping meals to lose weight can deprive the body of nutrients it needs to function properly. Getting Botox to look younger can 'alter the way [the] brain interprets and processes other people's emotions'. Self-surveilling can train us to prioritize how we look over how we feel. 'In order to feel alive one might have to give up, say, one's habitual tactics and techniques for deadening oneself,' Phillips writes. In this sense, 'giving up' is exactly the phrase you're looking for, Gen Acceptance. Give up, you know, starving. Give up vitamin deficiencies. Give up calorie-counting, step-counting, mirror-staring. Give up sucking in and Spanx-shaped skin indentations. Give up middle-aged men who demand someone do any of the above in exchange for happy hour apps at Applebee's. More from Jessica DeFino's Ask Ugly: My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done How should I be styling my pubic hair? How do I deal with imperfection? I want to ignore beauty culture. But I'll never get anywhere if I don't look a certain way If 'giving up' still doesn't sit right, try recontextualizing it as getting something back: time, money, energy, brain space, health – life, one might say. I'm not saying it's easy. Giving up can prompt 'very real suffering', as Phillips puts it. Quitting involves reassessing what we value, and this can get more painful with age. Maybe that's why your co-worker is so resistant to the idea of her friend accepting her body as-is. It might force her to ask herself: could she do the same? Should she? If so, what does that say about how she's lived thus far? Did she waste her one wild and precious existence thinking about dressing-on-the-side salads? Who is she if she's not thin, or at least trying to be? But if your co-worker isn't interested in reconsidering her beliefs, I'd give up trying to convince her. Because sometimes, giving up is good. Do you have a beauty question for Ask Ugly? Submit it anonymously here — and be as detailed as possible, please! Anonymous if you prefer Please be as detailed as possible Your contact details are helpful so we can contact you for more information. They will only be seen by the Guardian.
