Outrage grows as CDC reportedly poised to fund "unethical" vaccine trial
CDC allocated $1.6M for study on alleged harms of hepatitis B vaccine.
CDC allocated $1.6M for study on alleged harms of hepatitis B vaccine.
The short version
- The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.
- In January, amid criticism of the trial, officials in Guinea-Bissau said they had suspended the research, saying ethical and technical reviews of the trial’s design were ongoing.
- “There has been no sufficient coordination in order to take a final decision regarding the study,” Quinhin Nantote, the minister of public health for Guinea-Bissau, said at the time.
What happened
“Faced with this situation, we decided to suspend it.” The trial intends to enroll 14,000 newborns in Guinea-Bissau, half of which would get a newborn dose of hepatitis B vaccine, while the other half would not. The aim is to try to find alleged vaccine harms from the newborn dose—despite the fact that the newborn dose has been proven safe and effective after decades of global use and is the current standard of care.
Why it matters
Guinea-Bissau has a high burden of hepatitis B in its population, and newborns who are not vaccinated at birth are at risk of acquiring a chronic, life-threatening infection.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.