ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Trump administration has cut many global health programs. One cut stands out to some experts. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance provides immunizations for some of the world's poorest children. It won't be getting over a billion dollars in promised U.S. funding. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Gavi doesn't consider vaccine safety. NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports this stunned the global health world.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: And what angered many of them was the reason he gave for attacking the organization's safety record. RFK Jr. singled out a study from 2017. He called it a landmark study that he says proves one of the world's most common vaccines could be dangerous. He delivered his remarks in a video to the organization.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: The authors of this study were five internationally revered deities of vaccine research.
EMANUEL: One of those authors is a researcher named Christine Stabell Benn. She looked at the DTP vaccine that's given to the vast majority of the world's children. It protects them against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. Stabell Benn says it's good at protecting them against these three deadly diseases, but...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTINE STABELL BENN: We started doing what nobody else had done before us. We evaluated the effect of vaccines on overall health.
EMANUEL: Overall health, meaning, could this vaccine maybe make you more likely to die of other causes? To find out, Stabell Benn and her team looked through health records for about a thousand kids. The records came from the early '80s in the West African country of Guinea-Bissau. Stabell Benn didn't respond to interview requests, but here she is speaking at a TEDx Talk from 2019.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STABELL BENN: And the results were scary. Children who received DTP vaccine had five times higher risk of dying than those who didn't.
EMANUEL: A scary thought, yes, but outside researchers like Beate Kampmann aren't buying it.
BEATE KAMPMANN: It's just false news, right?
EMANUEL: She's at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. She has a long list of concerns about the study.
KAMPMANN: That study is based on ancient data. It is an observation study. Statistics are dodgy.
EMANUEL: And, Kampmann says, a few years later, those same researchers themselves repeated the study and found totally different results. The kids who got the DTP vaccine this time were not more likely to die. Kampmann says, on top of all this, that original study isn't even relevant because the DTP vaccines given today are different than the shots given in the '80s.
KAMPMANN: The recipe has changed, and the whole production of the process is different as well.
EMANUEL: Kampmann's not the only one who is skeptical. The World Health Organization has brought together independent panels of experts to investigate this issue. As a result, new studies were commissioned, and multiple times over the past 20 years the panels have concluded the current recommendation - that everyone gets a DTP vaccine - is the right one. Kate O'Brien is the WHO's top vaccine expert. She says billions of people have received the DTP vaccine.
KATE O'BRIEN: This vaccine has been used for over 50 years. We have decades and decades of safety information on DTP.
EMANUEL: If this vaccine is not given, she says...
O'BRIEN: We will cause harm. It will result in deaths.
EMANUEL: NPR sent HHS a list of concerns raised by outside vaccinologists. The HHS spokesperson did not respond to the concerns but said Gavi must re-earn public trust. Many in the medical establishment have condemned the U.S. for pulling its funding for global vaccination efforts.
PAUL OFFIT: It's just a travesty.
EMANUEL: Paul Offit directs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
OFFIT: There is probably no better public health organization, and, frankly, more economical public health organization, than Gavi.
EMANUEL: He says RFK Jr. used shoddy evidence to make a big decision. Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.