US-funded vaccine trial on babies cancelled in Guinea-Bissau amid ethical concerns

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According to the BBC, a proposed hepatitis B vaccine trial on newborns in Guinea-Bissau has been cancelled following accusations of it being unethical and neocolonial. The study, funded by the US under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., planned to withhold the vaccine from half of the 14,000 participating newborns. The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned the trial as unethical, noting that the vaccine has been used globally for over 30 years to protect infants. The government of Guinea-Bissau prohibited the trial in January, and judicial police seized a batch of vaccines from the Bandim Health Project research centre in October. The country's Health Minister stated that the government was never informed of the trial's progression. While the University of Southern Denmark claimed to have followed internal ethical protocols, critics, including global health experts, questioned why such risky research was being conducted on vulnerable populations in a developing nation rather than in Denmark.