Global Health Watch: Research in Peril, Ebola Vaccine Devs, Congress Questions Sec. Of State, Exec Order Makes Firing HHS Employees Easier

June 5, 2026

A new proposed White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule that cites PEPFAR as justification for greater political oversight of federal grantmaking puts research in peril; vaccine developments accelerate as the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak grows; and the US Secretary of State takes questions from multiple Congressional committees about the future of PEPFAR; responding to the Ebola outbreak; support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and US global health security. The Administration also nominated Johnny Figueroa of Tennessee to serve as Global AIDS Coordinator and issued a new Executive Order making thousands of US government employees easier to fire in continued efforts to dismantle science.

Proposed White House Rule Puts Research in Peril

In an ongoing attempt to decimate and politicize science, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed sweeping new regulations to significantly expand political interference in federal funding decisions across all federal grants, threatening science, global health and the HIV/AIDS response. International scientific partnerships would be broadly discouraged, if not prohibited. Awards could be terminated at any time, for any reason. The rules also dramatically restrict public access to information about federally funded research—from grant funding opportunities to study results to hand-picked selection of research projects by administration officials. Moreover, new rules require “pre-issuance” by senior political appointees in making preliminary decisions for prospective grant proposals, marking a remarkable shift in decision-making power from objective, scientific content experts to ideologically driven loyalists. The proposed rule is currently open for public comment through July 13. Click here to comment or see AVAC’s Action Alert for more instructions.

IMPLICATIONS: These rules, if adopted, would mandate that federally funded science align with a politically motivated “America-First” research agenda aimed at dismantling decades of transformative global collaboration. These rules have the potential to dramatically reshape the trajectory of the entire federal HIV research to rollout continuum—threatening 2030 targets and the pathway to global health equity. Notably, the published proposed rule specifically and falsely references PEPFAR as justification for increased political scrutiny of federal grants, linking HIV and global health programs to a broader debate over federal spending, oversight and executive authority. For the HIV field, these changes could affect the entire research-to-rollout continuum and global partnerships, at a time when scientific collaboration is necessary to achieving 2030 HIV targets and advancing global health equity.

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Race to Develop a Vaccine for the Ebola Bundibugyo Outbreak

This week, CEPI announced up to $62 million to accelerate three Bundibugyo-specific vaccine candidates into clinical testing. This comes as researchers and health officials are exploring whether existing Ebola vaccines and experimental therapies could offer some protection in the meantime. However, scientists warn that the outbreak is exposing a longstanding preparedness gap: despite years of warnings about the threat posed by non-Zaire Ebola strains, no licensed vaccines or therapeutics were available when this outbreak began. STAT reports that according to two former US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staffers, pandemic preparedness plans developed after COVID-19 were discarded under the current administration. And the firings of personnel and dismantled coordination mechanisms have left the US, and thus the global, response more fragmented.

IMPLICATIONS: These developments underscore a recurring lesson from both Ebola and HIV: scientific innovation alone is not enough. Sustained investment in research, surveillance, preparedness and global cooperation before a crisis emerges is essential to protecting health security and accelerating equitable access to lifesaving tools.

US Congress Questions Secretary of State on Ebola, Gavi and PEPFAR

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified for two days this week in front of multiple House and Senate congressional committees to defend the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2027 State Department budget and foreign policy agenda. Rubio was questioned on the Administration’s response to the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak; future support for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the restructuring of US foreign assistance, among other topics. In response to concerns that no single official is leading the Ebola response (something he harshly criticized the Obama administration for in 2014–15 when he was a senator), Rubio said the Administration is considering a dedicated coordinator. He also noted that the US may re-engage with Gavi amid the growing outbreak. During testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, public health and HIV activists were arrested while interrupting his speech, saying “Rubio’s cuts kill people with AIDS. PEPFAR saves lives.”

IMPLICATIONS: The hearings are bringing to light competing forces between the Administration and its intent to align its global health engagement with an “America First” strategy and concerns from Congress and the people about the consequences for outbreak preparedness, PEPFAR and HIV programs and international health security. Rubio’s comments on Gavi suggest that the worsening Ebola outbreak may be forcing a reassessment of recent moves away from multilateral health partnerships, particularly as Gavi plays a critical role in outbreak response and the development of potential Ebola vaccines. For the HIV field, the hearings reinforced that debates over PEPFAR, vaccine financing and global health security are increasingly interconnected, with Congress needing to step-up its oversight role to serve as a key arena for determining the future direction of US global health leadership.

New Executive Order Makes Thousands of Federal Employees Easier to Fire

A new US Executive Order (EO) was issued implementing “Schedule Policy/Career”, a category of employment that removes protections from approximately 8,000 federal employees in positions deemed to influence policy. The order expands the concept behind the Administration’s earlier “Schedule F” proposal, making it easier to fire career officials and replace merit-based protections with “at-will employment”. Federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), are expected to identify employees whose roles involve policy development, regulations or other policy-related functions.

IMPLICATIONS: Making non-political and career civil servants focused on policymaking easier to remove – with no legal recourse – is another step in the broader effort to centralize authority within the executive branch and shift toward greater political oversight of science, research and public health. Implementation of this EO could deprive the federal government of large swaths of built-up institutional memory, public health knowledge, and scientific expertise and be replaced by ideologues in alignment with Administration’s policy agenda. This is particularly a threat to the wide range of public health and research agencies under the purview of HHS, including NIH and its institutes, CDC, HRSA, FDA, among others.

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