Experts decry ‘neocolonialist’ Guinea-Bissau study after Trump administration changed advice for US babies

Experts decry ‘neocolonialist’ Guinea-Bissau study after Trump administration changed advice for US babies

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.”

  • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
    2·
    8 days ago

    You seem confused, I did read the whole article and in fact that excerpt is not from the article but rather from the official bandin.org website which is referenced in the same article.

    While they reference that page as source, and the page has clear points for more or less everything discussed in the article, they appear to disregard that.

    It is a major breach of scientific ethics to withhold an intervention that has been proven safe and effective. “It’s highly unethical to choose to give a vaccine to some children but not others,” Offit said.

    Clearly explained that all children will get the vaccine.

    Yamey noted: “There’s already an RCT [randomized, controlled trial] showing superior outcomes with the birth dose, so why is another one needed?”

    The trial does not focus on that, that is an already clear point. They’re focusing on secondary health effects the vaccine may produce.

    The study does not appear to be looking at whether the vaccine is more effective at birth, which Jacobs said was “concerning” as “nowhere in this do they say that they’re going to study the efficacy of the vaccine itself.”

    No, the vaccine is effective and that’s been widely shown in the past. No need to make a new trial for that.

    The whole article is just a couple people worried about this study mainly because they are afraid the results of such study will be used by the US government to decrease the application of hepatitis vaccination.

    “Because Robert F Kennedy Jr is an anti-vaccine zealot, he will somehow contort that study to look like the hepatitis B birth dose causes harm”

    Financing of this kind of studies is normal. The whole article is painting this as uncommon and manipulated, however there is nor any proof of that nor any reason to show that could be true. The whole article is based off of speculation and false allegations. I’m not American myself and thus I do not care too much about your personal worries with this Kennedy, if you write an article regarding a problematic clinical trial please make the article about a problematic clinical trial and not about speculations of a manipulation of the plausible results which may be obtained through such a trial.

    The article incorrectly depicts the trial setting and does not address what the problems with the trial are. Now regarding your reply, please rather than only reading the whole article; maybe also try to understand what it means and where they got their information from.

    If you like we can discuss about this, I’m open to that, but I don’t really want to waste my time. My original comment was just to advise readers to focus a bit more: I opened the webpage of the trial for you and gave you the idea that the article is not correctly describing what it is about. What you do with that information is up to you.