BRUSSELS — An adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lauded Europe’s data on Covid-19 vaccines in front of European Parliament lawmakers on Wednesday. Robert W. Malone, one of RFK Jr.’s newly selected vaccine advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States can’t gather and analyze data as well as Europe does it, name-checking the Nordics and the U.K. especially for their systems. “One of the consequences is we can’t do, frankly, as good a job as you can do in epidemiology, which may be part of the reason why in some nation states, we’re getting better data on the Covid harms from Europe, the U.K., than we’re getting from the United States,” Malone said. That’s because, among other things, “we don’t have socialized medicine the same way you do, and we have barriers to ensure patient confidentiality,” he told right-wing MEPs gathered in the Parliament to launch the Make Europe Healthy Again (MEHA) movement with the Patriots for Europe group. Under RFK Jr., the U.S. has tried to reign in who can receive Covid-19 shots, which until recently were offered to everyone over 6 months of age at least once a year.   Europe diverged from American Covid-19 shot recommendations during the pandemic, restricting eligibility to those who would be at greatest risk from catching the virus as well as weighing the possible side effects. Younger men and teenagers, for example, appeared more susceptible to a rare heart condition after vaccination. RFK Jr., who has campaigned against the use of certain vaccines, has cited Europe’s approach to Covid-19 vaccination in his attempts to restrict who in the U.S. should receive it. He has also pushed for pregnant women to avoid using paracetamol (Tylenol), linking its use to increasing rates of autism in the U.S., under his Make America Health Again (MAHA) campaign.

The United States won’t contribute anymore to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, until the global health organization has “re-earned the public trust,” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday. In an inflammatory video speech delivered to the Gavi pledging summit, seen by POLITICO, Kennedy accused Gavi of neglecting vaccine safety, making questionable recommendations around Covid-19 vaccines and silencing dissenting views. “When the science was inconvenient, Gavi ignored the science,” Kennedy said. “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,” he said. “And I’ll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously: Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms. Until that happens, the United States won’t contribute more to Gavi.” In response to the video, Gavi said its “utmost concern is the health and safety of children.” “Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by WHO’s  Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent, and independent process,” the group said. Gavi leaders are in Brussels Wednesday for the organization’s pledging summit, where they are hoping to raise $9 billion for the 2026 to 2030 period. This will allow another 500 million childhood vaccinations and save at least 8 million lives by 2030, Gavi’s plan said. Going into the summit, the question of the U.S. pledge was one of the hottest ones. While an early pledge of $1.58 billion under former President Joe Biden has been announced, it was unclear whether Kennedy was going to commit to it. The Trump administration previously signaled it planned to cut its funding for Gavi, amounting to around $300 million annually. During his speech, Kennedy accused Gavi and the World Health Organization of working together during the Covid-19 pandemic to “recommend best practices for social media companies to silence dissenting views, to stifle free speech and legitimate questions during that period.” Facebook and Twitter restricted U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts during the pandemic. Kennedy also criticized what he alleged are Gavi’s “questionable recommendations encouraging pregnant women to receive Covid-19 vaccines.” There are things he “admires” about Gavi, Kennedy said, such as its commitment to make medicine affordable to all. But in its attempt to promote universal vaccination, he accused the alliance of having “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 alleged. “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,” he added. TARGETING CHILDHOOD VACCINE In the video message, Kennedy criticized Gavi’s push for DTP (diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis) immunization, referring to a 2017 study that he claims links the vaccine to higher infant mortality in girls. Other studies have subsequently questioned that early DTP vaccines is associated with increased female mortality. In the response to the address, Gavi said that “having reviewed all available data, including any studies that raised concerns, global immunisation experts continue to recommend DTPw for infants in high-risk settings.” DTPw (whole-cell pertussis) vaccines produce a stronger, longer-lasting immune response but can cause temporary side effects, Gavi writes. “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),” they continue. “Based on a full assessment of the science available, Gavi continues to have full confidence in the DTPw vaccine. As an important element in our routine vaccine portfolio, it has played a key role in helping halve childhood mortality in Gavi-supported countries since 2000,” Gavi said. Since Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has been health secretary, he has restricted Covid-19 vaccine access and fired all members of the vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, replacing them with his own picks, with several having a controversial history around immunizations. This story has been updated with Gavi’s response.

Global health leaders are urging the European Union to step up to protect lifesaving health programs amid what they see as a “moment of reckoning” after the United States and other countries cut foreign aid spending. The U.S.’s cuts to international development threaten the lives of millions of people and decades of progress in disease prevention and treatments, the leaders warned in interviews with POLITICO. They also said they worry these funding cuts present a worrying trend among some of the world’s richest — and traditionally most generous — countries. “There are huge uncertainties,” said Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “And the huge uncertainty is not just about the U.S., but about what other partners, what other donors, are going to do. And I think it comes down to a question of political will.” Shortly after his January inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), scrapping over 80 percent of its programs and slashing funding for numerous initiatives including those focused on HIV, tuberculosis and malaria prevention. The U.S. administration is also reviewing foreign aid with its “America First” policy, leaving many organizations that depend on federal financial support anxious about their future. The trend extends beyond the U.S. In February, the U.K. announced it will cut international development spending and instead boost its defense budget, while the Netherlands also said it is cutting foreign aid by €2.4 billion. Germany and France rolled back foreign aid budgets last year amounting to another €3 billion cut. In this uncertain political landscape, global health leaders want the EU to step up. “As some countries of the world backtrack from development assistance, it would be very important for the EU to signal — to Africa in particular — that development is still a priority and that the EU is a reliable partner,” said Sania Nishtar, CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. As Europe increases its defense expenditure, Nishtar said she recognizes security is an important priority. “But health security is a very important aspect of the security paradigm,” she added. “Both for the European Commission itself and for the EU as a whole, there is a real opportunity to demonstrate leadership (in global health).” The Global Fund and Gavi both have replenishment rounds this year — and U.S. contributions can make a large difference to their operations. | Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images The Commission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Laurent Muschel, acting director general at the EU’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), said at a recent event that the Commission is “committed to continue to support global health.” BRACING FOR IMPACT The Global Fund and Gavi both have replenishment rounds this year — and U.S. contributions can make a large difference to their operations. The U.S. has traditionally been The Global Fund’s largest donor, contributing $1.7 billion in 2024. The government also gave $300 million to Gavi in 2024, and former U.S. President Joe Biden made a five-year pledge of at least $1.58 billion last year. The potential impact of further foreign assistance cuts would be enormous. Gavi has vaccinated over 1.1 billion children over the past 25 years, saving nearly 19 million lives, according to its statistics. “Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective life-saving interventions on this planet,” Nishtar said. “Now more than ever, it’s very important that EU and countries in the EU step up and signal the importance of this life-saving intervention.” The Global Fund says it has contributed to cutting the combined death rate from AIDS, TB and malaria by 61 percent over the past two decades, saving 65 million lives. “We’re talking about disease programs that affect millions of people,” Sands said. There are roughly 25 million people on antiretroviral treatment in the countries where PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and the Global Fund are investing, he said — “people whose health is potentially at risk from disruptions to programming.” These HIV funding cuts also come as the world has a “game changing opportunity” to bring forward the end of HIV as a public health threat, he added, thanks to the latest drugs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has already warned that the recent funding cuts will have a “devastating impact” on tuberculosis (TB) programs worldwide, given that the U.S. has historically been the largest donor. In some countries cuts are already causing severe disruptions, and the timing couldn’t be worse: The European region is experiencing a 10 percent surge in childhood TB cases. In malaria treatment and prevention, where progress had already stalled due to challenges such as climate change, drug resistance and ongoing conflicts, “now we run the risk that we go backwards,” Sands said. Health leaders are warning that these cuts will impact those living in the most vulnerable communities, including low- and middle-income countries and war zones. Andriy Klepikov, executive director of the Alliance for Public Health, one of the largest HIV- and TB-focused NGOs in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, said that rumors that the White House is considering shutting down the HIV prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are “worrying.” The WHO has already warned that the recent funding cuts will have a “devastating impact” on tuberculosis programs worldwide. | Robert Hradil/Getty Images “It would be a disaster,” he told POLITICO. “We would be dealing with thousands of undiagnosed people, with all range of consequences, like spikes in HIV infections, but also health consequences and complications.” The alliance receives about one-third of its funding from the U.S. and its operations have already been disrupted, with USAID cuts threatening to halt one of their mobile clinics — delivering health care to people on the frontline and in rural areas. “We managed to find money but it’s a short-term solution,” Klepikov said.

The European Commission would have shared the alleged text messages between its President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla — if it had found any and considered them important enough, a court heard on Friday. The question at the heart of the hearing is whether the content was substantive enough that it should have been registered in the Commission’s document management system  — and whether the Commission should therefore have provided journalists access to the texts.  Presenting its position before a packed EU court in Luxembourg, Europe’s executive is defending itself in the so-called “Pfizergate” case brought by the New York Times and its former Brussels bureau chief Matina Stevis-Gridneff. The New York Times article, from April 2021 suggested that Bourla and von der Leyen personally communicated over text messages to help close Europe’s biggest Covid 19 vaccine deal. “This was a major deal in very difficult times concerning all the citizens of the European Union,” Stevis-Gridness and the paper’s lawyer Bondine Kloostra told the court. The American outlet is asking judges at the EU’s lower-tier court, the General Court, to decide whether von der Leyen’s office was wrong to refuse to release text messages she allegedly exchanged with the boss of Covid vaccine-maker Pfizer in early 2021. At the time, the Commission chief was negotiating a valuable deal to secure up to 1.8 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines from the company.  So far, judges have questioned the Commission on the existence of the text messages, and whether their content was significant enough to force their release — something which the New York Times said can’t be proven unless they were made public. A transcription from the Times’ interview with Bourla was read out in the court room by the Times’ lawyer Flip Schüller. “If there is an issue she (von der Leyen) wanted to know, and also I wanted to know if they have any concerns, I wanted to know. So we exchanged text messages, if there was something that we needed to discuss.” But the Commission wrote in its written arguments that the texts “would have been registered” in its document management system — and therefore available for the public to request access — if they contained “important information” that wasn’t “short-lived,” or if they led to or required any follow-up or action by the Commission or one of its departments.  The Commission’s lawyer Paolo Stancanelli said that texts concerning “negotiations of vaccine contracts between the president and CEO of Pfizer with substantive content never existed.” But he added that he “cannot deny” that text messages were exchanged between von der Leyen and Bourla, but since they were “not relevant with substantive content” to the Commission’s policy, the executive “never got hold of the document at any time, so we are not able to tell you until when they existed, or if they still exist.”  The case continues.  This story is being updated.

More than 50 children were reportedly killed in Jabalia in northern Gaza between Friday and Saturday, the United Nations agency UNICEF said. The deaths occurred when “strikes leveled two residential buildings sheltering hundreds of people,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said in the statement on Saturday. She also cited two attacks on the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, one in which no UNICEF workers were injured when their car came under fire, and a second in which at least three children were reportedly injured near a vaccination clinic in Sheikh Radwan, in the north of the Strip. These attacks “are yet further examples of the grave consequences of the indiscriminate strikes on civilians in the Gaza Strip,” Russell said, calling on Israel for “an immediate investigation into the circumstances surrounding the attack on its staff member.” Palestinian authorities also condemned the attack in Sheikh Radwan, saying it wounded six people, including four children. Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani denied responsibility, saying that “contrary to the claims, an initial review determined that the [Israeli military] did not strike in the area at the specified time.” Meanwhile, a new intelligence analysis reported Sunday by newspaper Israel Hayom suggests that 51 of the 101 hostages held by Hamas are still alive. Although officials have confirmed only 37 deaths among the other hostages, the latest analysis suggests that the remaining 50 hostages are dead, according to the report.