The other day, I tried to get tickets for Oasis — any venue, anywhere — and was met with unprecedented demand. In the UK alone, nearly 5% of the population tried to secure tickets.
A few days later, I went for another COVID-19 vaccination. The difference was striking: there was no demand at all. Staff at the clinic were surprised to see anyone under retirement age getting vaccinated. The contrast is telling. While the 1990s are enjoying a major cultural revival, the same cannot be said for vaccinations — and not just for COVID. At the end of July, the New York Times reported that childhood vaccination rates in general have dropped again.
Although this data focuses on the United States, it reflects a broader global trend, which is increasingly concerning in light of the U.S. withdrawal from the GAVI vaccine alliance just under ten weeks ago. This move has received comparatively little attention, overshadowed by wider discussions about the erosion of international cooperation..
At the time, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended the decision, claiming that GAVI had “ignored science” and “lost the public’s trust.”
On Reddit, the US withdrawal was met with a rather sarcastic response.
GAVI ,the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, stands out as one of the clearest examples of successful, coordinated global health efforts — and as a model for public-private partnerships. Founded in 2000, GAVI was created to solve a pressing problem: vaccines were being developed, but the poorest countries could not afford them, and manufacturers had little financial incentive to serve these markets. GAVI stepped in to fill this gap. By pooling donations and purchasing vaccines in bulk, GAVI makes life-saving immunizations affordable and accessible in countries where disease outbreaks are most deadly and health systems are weakest.
Fake news becomes reality Politics
Since its inception, GAVI has funded vaccinations for at least 760 million children, protecting them against life-threatening diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, and Hib — a bacterium that can cause meningitis, pneumonia, and sepsis. These efforts are estimated to have saved 18 million lives. Today, GAVI reaches nearly half of all children worldwide, making it a cornerstone of global public health.
Vaccination works; anything else is simply a lie.
Of course, that wasn't the reason for the withdrawal. Instead, the US was concerned about how GAVI had been involved in suppressing freedom of expression during the coronavirus pandemic (just for the record: GAVI didn't suppress anything, of course, but simply pointed out the benefits of vaccination).
RFK Jr. used the announcement to do what he always does: sow doubt about vaccines.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. justified the U.S. withdrawal from GAVI by citing a flawed 2017 observational study that claimed DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccines increased mortality in girls. This claim ignored confounding factors and biases, and subsequent, more rigorous follow-up studies — including by the same researchers — found no such effect. Their conclusion in 2022 was clear: “We found no association between DTP and increased mortality in women.”
The Second-Largest Contributor
Before withdrawing, the United States provided about 13 percent of GAVI’s budget, making it the second-largest contributor after the UK. These funds had already been approved through 2030, totaling roughly one billion dollars. The money is not handled by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), but through the State Department’s foreign aid, which means the decision falls under Congressional oversight rather than Kennedy’s direct responsibility.
To help fill the gap, the Gates Foundation pledged $1.6 billion, while Germany will contribute €600 million over the next five years — but this may still fall short of the shortfall created by the U.S. withdrawal.
Why This Matters
Cutting support for GAVI is not just a humanitarian and geopolitical setback — it also erodes trust in science and the reliability of Western nations. But most importantly, it risks breeding preventable diseases in remote parts of the world, which will inevitably return globally, as human mobility today is unprecedented and impossible to halt.
AVI is not alone. In the past six months, the U.S. has discontinued over 5,500 research projects, including more than 100 clinical trials on critical topics such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, HIV, water contamination, and healthcare imaging — research that affects even populations aligned with MAGA politics. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is undergoing massive funding cuts, signaling a broader trend of deprioritizing science.
At the state level, actions mirror this national shift. Florida’s top health official, Joseph Ladapo, recently waived all vaccination requirements, including in schools.
His reasoning? “Your body is a gift from God.”
In practice, this means policy decisions are being made without data and without preparing hospitals for preventable outbreaks. For Europe, and for the rest of the world, the consequence is clear: we will have more work to do in the future to contain diseases that could have been prevented.
Compares vaccination to slavery: Dr. Joseph Ladapo, director of Florida's public health service.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is by far the largest research institution in the United States and the world’s largest public research funding organization. It is not a single agency, but a consortium of 27 institutes and centers, each specializing in areas such as cancer (NCI), infectious diseases (NIAID), aging (NIA), and mental health (NIMH).
Yet the future looks uncertain. Congress’s current budget plan calls for an additional 40% cut in NIH funding, reducing it from $47.4 billion today to about about on $27 billion by 2026. This is not accidental: the NIH represents the largest single item in the discretionary Health and Human Services budget
The cuts are already concentrated in a few elite institutions. Harvard Medical School has lost 340 grants, followed by Columbia University Health Sciences (163), the Harvard School of Public Health (158), and Harvard University (139). Other affected universities include UC campuses and Yale. While some of this may reflect sheer research volume, it is no secret that these universities’ political orientations are less aligned with Washington, which may influence funding decisions.
The Global Impact of U.S. Domestic Policy
Science is inherently collaborative and global. Many NIH-funded projects involve international partnerships, particularly in fields such as rare disease research, where expanding the pool of study participants requires cross-border collaboration. Cuts to NIH funding thus translate into setbacks for global research, not just American science.
The reduction in indirect costs — expenses for laboratory equipment, hazardous waste disposal, and basic infrastructure like electricity, air conditioning, and heating — by nearly one-third only compounds the problem.
The broader economic implications are significant. According to the American Chamber of Commerce, NIH funding supports 400,000 jobs and generates $94.6 billion in economic activity across the United States. One study estimates that every dollar invested in NIH research produces $2.56 in new economic activity, a return of over 250%.
In short, cuts to the NIH are not just a domestic issue — they weaken global scientific collaboration, slow innovation, and reduce the effectiveness of international public health efforts.
The National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland: Promoting science is a great way to increase prosperity. Just provide funding.
Although Europe lacks equivalent figures to the U.S., Europeans are actively promoting science — most prominently through Horizon Europe, the EU’s flagship research and innovation program. Running from 2021 to 2027 with a budget of €95.5 billion, Horizon Europe represents the EU’s largest coordinated research effort. Smaller funding initiatives, such as Choose Europe for Science, also support research mobility and collaboration.
Yet despite these efforts, European research funding still lags behind the U.S., China, Japan, and South Korea, often by margins more reminiscent of military spending than scientific investment. In 2023, the EU’s research and development expenditure stood at 2.22 percent of GDP, roughly half that of South Korea. Furthermore, the proportion of private sector funding in Europe is generally lower than in these other countries, even in Germany, where private investment in R&D slightly exceeds public spending.
Another challenge is short-term funding cycles and high administrative burdens, which leave little room for long-term planning. Even with the best intentions, it is unrealistic to expect that all scientific capacity lost elsewhere could simply be relocated to Europe, given the current level of industrial and philanthropic support across the continent.
Nevertheless, the EU’s goal is ambitious. “We want scientists, researchers, academics, and highly skilled workers to choose Europe,” said Ursula von der Leyen at the “Choose Europe for Science” conference at Sorbonne University in Paris.
Will it work?
As of now, there are no reliable figures on U.S. researchers considering relocation to Europe — only anecdotal evidence.
So, definitely maybe.
