World Health Organization Blasts ‘Unethical’ CDC-Funded Hepatitis B Vaccine Study in Africa

World Health Organization Blasts ‘Unethical’ CDC-Funded Hepatitis B Vaccine Study in Africa

The hepatitis B vaccine would be withheld from some children in Africa as part of a questionable study about ‘optimal timing’ for the shots.

Hepatitis vaccine trial bucks ethics standards, says WHO

The study would mean applying a “double standard” to standards of care between the sponsoring countries – Denmark and the US – and the host country.

When Good Intentions Meet Bad Ethics: The Newborn Vaccine Controversy That Shouldn’t Exist

The rebuke from the World Health Organization was unusually sharp. A U.S.-funded clinical trial in Guinea-Bissau, they announced, was “unethical”—a word global health agencies don’t throw around lightly. The reason? Researchers planned to deliberately delay a proven, life-saving hepatitis B vaccine for some newborns to study whether timing mattered. The WHO wasn’t mincing words: knowingly withholding protection from vulnerable babies crosses a b…