We Are Not Guinea Pig : West African Nation Halts Controversial American Vaccine Study After Public Outcry

ibtimes.co.uk · Feb 14, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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A massive uproar has forced Guinea-Bissau to pull the plug on a US-funded vaccine trial that would have tested 14,000 newborn babies. The suspension came after furious pushback from local officials and international health experts who slammed the research as deeply unethical.Health Minister Quinhin Nantote broke the news during a press conference with the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention late last month. He said the country's ethics committee simply didn't have the 'required technical resources' to properly review such a major study. The announcement followed weeks of mounting anger from critics who accused researchers of exploiting one of the world's poorest countries for a trial that would never fly in wealthier nations.'Guinea-Bissauans Are Not Guinea Pigs'Dr Magda Robalo didn't mince words when she spoke out against the trial. The former health minister, who spent over 30 years working in global health, including senior roles at the WHO, told the science journal Nature she was appalled her country would even consider such research. 'It's not acceptable and it should not go on,' she said. 'Guinea-Bissauans are not guinea pigs.'Robalo explained that researchers exploited Guinea-Bissau's weak research infrastructure. She said a small ethics committee within the health ministry knew about the study but failed to inform the national public health institute—the body that should approve such significant experiments.'We are not second-level citizens,' Robalo said. 'We are not a population to be used for anything that you cannot do in the Global North. We demand respect, despite the fact that we don't have the capacity that we need.' What the Trial Would Have DoneThe controversial study came with a $1.6 million (£1.2 million) price tag from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Danish researchers at the University of Southern Denmark's Bandim Health Project designed the trial to split babies into two groups randomly. One group would get the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, whilst the other would wait until six weeks old.Researchers called this a 'unique window of opportunity' since Guinea-Bissau plans to start vaccinating all newborns at birth by 2028. But that's exactly what enraged critics. Why test something we already know works by denying it to thousands of vulnerable babies?The numbers tell a stark story. More than 12 per cent of adults in Guinea-Bissau carry chronic hepatitis B, according to the World Health Organization. When babies catch hepatitis B at birth, roughly 90 per cent develop lifelong infections that can cause liver damage, cirrhosis, and cancer.WHO Pulls No PunchesThe WHO didn't hold back in its criticism. The organisation said it had 'significant concerns regarding the study's scientific justification, ethical safeguards, and overall alignment with established principles for research involving human participants'.The global health body stressed that the hepatitis B birth dose vaccine has been safely used in more than 115 countries for over three decades. Vaccinating newborns within 24 hours of birth prevents mother-to-child transmission in 70 to 95 per cent of cases. Trials that withhold proven treatments are only acceptable when no proven treatment exists. That standard clearly doesn't apply here—the hepatitis B vaccine has been around since the early 1990s.The Kennedy ConnectionThe study's ties to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who now runs the US Department of Health and Human Services, raised eyebrows. One of the trial leaders, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, advises a US vaccine committee whose members were handpicked by Kennedy after he sacked the previous panel.Just two months before this trial was announced, that same committee voted to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines for all US newborns—reversing a policy that slashed American hepatitis B infections by 99 per cent since 1991.Echoes of TuskegeeDr Boghuma Titanji, who teaches medicine at Emory University and studies vaccine misinformation in Africa, called the trial 'unconscionable'. She told health publication CIDRAP that conducting such research in Guinea-Bissau reflects colonial attitudes where Western nations treated Africa as a testing ground. 'The study reeks of practices that are from a different time,' Titanji said. 'But we are in a moment in history where we know better.'Medical experts drew comparisons to the infamous Tuskegee study, where US researchers watched untreated syphilis progress in Black men even after effective treatments became available.Why This Matters for Global HealthThe suspension marks a critical moment in debates about research ethics and power imbalances in global health. For Guinea-Bissau—where 60 per cent of the population lives in poverty—the incident exposed the urgent need to protect citizens from exploitative foreign studies.Dr Jean Kaseya, who leads Africa CDC, emphasised that African countries control what trials happen on their soil. 'It's not a foreign country that will come and say this one will take place,' Kaseya said. 'It's the sovereignty of the country.'The WHO has pledged to help Guinea-Bissau accelerate its planned 2028 rollout of birth-dose hepatitis B vaccination—focusing on actually protecting babies rather than using them as test subjects.