KJS DC 1.26

The board table of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, just got smaller. For the first time in the organization’s history, the United States has lost its seat. This isn’t because we lack the expertise or the history of leadership; it is because we have failed to pay the “entry fee” of our basic moral and financial commitments.

As a former member of the board of Roll Back Malaria and the Global Fund, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when American leadership vanishes from the room. Governance fails, partners and coordination fractures, and the most vulnerable people on earth—infants in the world’s poorest regions—are the ones that lose their defense against preventable death.

To walk away from Gavi (…all our international cooperation) now, under the guise of “questioning the science,” isn’t just an act of isolationism. It is another calculated dismantling. This time of a global supply chain that the United States itself pioneered.

The idiocy is mountainous and intentional.

The current administration, led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has frozen Gavi funding based on long-debunked claims regarding vaccine safety, specifically targeting the DTP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis) vaccine.

This is not a “scientific inquiry.” It is an ideological execution of a program that has halved child mortality in 78 countries since 2000.  

Let’s look at the “return on investment” as if that might speak to this administration’s sensibilities.

Immunization is the most cost-effective tool in the public health arsenal. Exclamation point. For every $1 invested in Gavi-supported countries, the economic return is $54.

Since its inception, Gavi has prevented more than 20 million deaths. In 2024 alone, despite rising geopolitical instability, Gavi-supported vaccines saved 1.7 million lives—the highest single-year total ever recorded.  

The United States spent decades building the “Cold Chain”—the sophisticated, refrigerated infrastructure that allows a vaccine to travel from a factory in Europe or India to a remote village in sub-Saharan Africa. The US created the pooled procurement models that forced prices down, making life-saving medicine affordable.

We didn’t give ‘charity’; we built a market.

By abdicating our seat at the board, we are not “saving money.” We are forfeiting our ability to oversee how global health dollars are spent, how markets are shaped, and how future pandemics are caught before they reach our shores.

The House of Representatives recently signaled its understanding of this reality, passing H.R. 7006 with a bipartisan $300 million commitment for Gavi. But that money is currently hostage to a Senate vote and a potential presidential veto.

This is a horrifying moment for anyone who believes in “basic health equity.” It is especially galling to see this withdrawal supported by a base that claims to value the sanctity of life.

There is no greater “pro-life” intervention than ensuring a child survives their fifth birthday. To deny these children a chance to live, especially when we possess the excessive national wealth to prevent their deaths, is a crime of negligence.

How can Christians continue to bootstrap this anti Christian MAGA policy in America is a whole other matter.

Point is: We are watching the collapse of American global health diplomacy in real-time.

If the Senate does not act, and if the President chooses to impound these funds, the “Empty Seat” at Gavi will become the lasting symbol of an America that chose to let children die rather than face the facts of its own success.