State Department Will Dispense $600m For Vaccines Rfk Jr. Held Up, Collins Says

The State Department will dispense the $600 million Congress appropriated to an international partnership helping developing countries buy and distribute vaccines, Susan Collins (R-Maine), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine safety skeptic, has held up the funding for months because he believes the partnership, Gavi, uses outdated and dangerous shots.

“It is welcome news that following our recent outreach, the State Department has committed to contributing the full $600 million for GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance,” Collins said in a statement first shared with POLITICO.

She said Gavi “plays a critical role in averting the spread of preventable diseases globally and stopping outbreaks before they reach U.S. borders.”

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Collins’s announcement comes after months of delay in disbursing the funding, appropriated for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years, to Gavi, which the U.S. co-founded a quarter century ago. The $600 million expires on Sept 30.

Gavi provides vaccines for 20 diseases, including measles, malaria and polio, to more than 50 low-income countries globally. It estimates that it's vaccinated over 1.2 billion children in the world’s poorest countries, preventing more than 20.6 million potential deaths.

While the State Department is in charge of funding for the group, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month that President Donald Trump asked him to allow Kennedy to get involved in funding decisions for Gavi.

Gavi denies it uses outdated or dangerous shots, and mainstream experts on vaccines say the shots are safe. Gavi has nonetheless offered to expedite a shift to shots that don’t contain an ingredient Kennedy believes is unsafe, hoping to assuage him, in talks brokered by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire.

Rubio also told the Foreign Relations Committee he would reengage to get the funding moving.

“We'd like to get this issue resolved in an outcome that's acceptable both to Congress and also to our goals on global health,” Rubio said, adding that he would continue to consider Kennedy's input on the issue.

Collins and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, sent a letter to Rubio in May questioning why the State Department hadn’t used the money lawmakers appropriated for Gavi for the 2025 and 2026 fiscal years.

Other senators have gotten involved. Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, the former Republican majority leader, Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrats Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Shaheen also signed the letter.

Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.