Gavi offers to phase out thimerosal vaccines amid US funding dispute

An international relief group that provides vaccines to poor countries says it’s phasing out some vaccines that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. believes are unsafe.

The health secretary has cited Gavi’s use of the shots in blocking $600 million in U.S. funding.

In a bid to get Kennedy to relent, the group on Thursday offered to speed the transition to shots that do not contain thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) has sought to broker a deal between Gavi, a humanitarian organization the U.S. co-founded a quarter-century ago, and Kennedy. Congress has long provided a big chunk of Gavi’s budget. Kennedy has held up the money lawmakers appropriated for the last two fiscal years over thimerosal and other vaccine safety concerns.

If the funding, which expires on Sept. 30, doesn’t reach Gavi, “we would see a resurgence of deadly infectious diseases that would make Americans and the world less safe,” Shaheen told POLITICO in a statement.

It’s not clear yet if Kennedy plans to accept the offer. “We remain cautiously optimistic that ongoing discussions can produce greater transparency, accountability, and a constructive path forward,” said Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for Kennedy’s department.

Olly Cann, a spokesperson for Gavi, said the organization’s board approved a strategy in 2024 to phase out two vaccines that contain thimerosal. The decision to transition to different shots was not because of concerns with the preservative’s safety, he said, but because the newer shots provide protection against more diseases or more disease strains. The newer shots don’t contain thimerosal.

That shift was slowed by the lack of U.S. funding, Seth Berkley, Gavi’s former chief executive, told POLITICO last month.

Gavi provided a timeline for phasing out the shots on Thursday to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Gavi had previously defended its use of vaccines containing thimerosal, saying they were both safe and easier to use in vials containing multiple doses in the countries Gavi serves, where refrigeration is often lacking. A Gavi spokesperson told Reuters in January, amidst the U.S. funding block, that any decision regarding the organization’s vaccine portfolio required a decision by Gavi’s board.

Kennedy believes thimerosal is likely to cause autism. Though scientists have not found a link, Kennedy has likewise sought to eliminate thimerosal’s use in the United States, where it continues to be used in some flu shots.

Gavi on Thursday also provided HHS with a list of studies that have guided its vaccine program and a written commitment that no U.S. funding will be used for the procurement or distribution of vaccines containing thimerosal, according to Shaheen’s office.

Shaheen, who’s the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, obtained a commitment from Kennedy during an appropriations hearing last month to work with her to release the funding.

Cann said that securing U.S. funding “will enable us to save hundreds of thousands of lives, reduce the risk of global health emergencies, and help keep the domestic prices of vaccines down.”

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

Its plan is to move to a 6-in-1 shot against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b and polio, and to a vaccine against five different strains of meningococcal meningitis that don’t contain the preservative.

“We are hopeful that, with funding from the U.S., we will be able to make these switches,” Cann said.

Gavi’s funding is officially controlled by the State Department, but Kennedy’s influence shows how his skeptical views about vaccines are affecting government policy broadly. Kennedy wrote a 2014 book, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, that makes the case for halting its use.

Kennedy argued in the book that “there is a virtually unanimous scientific consensus among the hundreds of research scientists who have published peer-reviewed articles in the field that Thimerosal is immensely toxic to brain tissue.”

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.

Subsequent peer-reviewed scientific studies haven’t found a link to autism, and a federal vaccine court rejected arguments alleging a link in the late 2000s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency under Kennedy’s purview, continues to say that “research does not show any link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism.”

However, a panel of vaccine advisers appointed by Kennedy recommended last June against continued use of thimerosal in the United States. A federal judge in March ruled that the panel was improperly appointed and that its recommendations were invalid.

Shaheen said in her statement she was grateful to Kennedy for following through on his promise to work with her on the issue “and I appreciate Gavi acting in good faith to address the Secretary’s concern.”