US plan for $1.6m hepatitis B vaccine study in Africa called 'highly unethical'
The Trump administration has indicated that it will fund a $1.6m study on hepatitis B vaccination of newborns in the west African country of Guinea-Bissau, where nearly one in five adults live with the virus – a move that researchers call “highly unethical” and “extremely risky”.
The news follows an official change in recommendations on hepatitis B vaccines at birth from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which called the shots an “individual” decision, despite decades of safe and effective vaccination and no evidence of harm. It is part of sweeping changes to childhood immunizations by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, which have global repercussions – including cutting funding for programs that bring vaccines to countries around the world.
“He has a fixed, immutable belief that vaccines cause harm,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “He will do everything he can to try and prove that.”
The actions taken this year by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, have “a global impact”, said Elizabeth Jacobs, professor emerita at the University of Arizona and a founding member of the grassroots group Defend Public Health. “It is spreading like an infection all its own throughout the globe.”
esting established vaccines in a country with high rates of hepatitis B and a fragile health system “reeks of a neocolonialist attitude” and risks expanding global mistrust of the US and science, said Gavin Yamey, professor of global health at the Duke Global Health Institute.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/19/hepatitis-b-vaccine-study-guinea-bissau-rfk
When has this administration done ANYTHING in an ethical manner? I ask you.
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