Guinea-Bissau Hepatitis B Vaccine Trial: Birth-Dose Concerns and Research Ethics

When the word Tuskegee is mentioned in a conversation, it immediately conjures up both images of great heroism in World War II and one of the greatest stains in US History: the infamous syphilis experiments inflicted on Black Americans.

Now we are hearing about a Tuskegee II experiment, a notion that makes many people cringe. Unfortunately, this is not hyperbole or being disrespectful to past Black American victims; this is what may happen. However, this time the experiment is not giving available treatments to patients having chronic syphilis but instead withholding hepatitis B vaccinations at birth to innocent Black infants in the West African country of Guinea-Bissau.

The study in question involves a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of 14,000 infants, in which half will receive the hepatitis B vaccine, and the other half will have vaccinations delayed by 6 weeks. The 6-week delay will require another doctor’s visit, which is expected to lead to significant patient dropout in indigent care settings, especially since an RCT is unlikely to address patient factors such as work conflicts and transportation difficulties. Rolling Stone reported that the latest available plans are to ask mothers whether they are infected with hepatitis B and to have 250 blood tests available to screen for infection in mothers and children. However, this is far too few tests, and interviewing mothers in indigent care settings regarding possible viral infections may not produce reliable results.

This study was reportedly killed earlier this year, but Rolling Stone has reported that the US CDC is pushing for it to resume. The study would be conducted by the University of Southern Denmark and funded with a $1.6 million US CDC grant. 

The country of Guinea-Bissau is exceedingly poor. Nearly 40% of its citizens live below the international $3-per-day poverty level. It is a country ripe for exploitation. Almost 1 in 5 individuals and over 2% of children under 5 years old are actively infected with hepatitis B. Guinea-Bissau is planning to mandate the birth dose in 2028, but until then, these children are unprotected from the adverse consequences of antivaxxer conspiracy theories.

In February of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the hepatitis B birth dose is a time-tested vaccine that prevents life-threatening disease and has been used for over 30 years. It is in the vaccine schedule of more than 115 countries. The WHO expressed grave concerns regarding the proposed randomized controlled trial’s “scientific justification, ethical safeguards, and overall alignment with established principles for research involving human participants.”

Earlier this year, Yap Boum, a senior official at the African CDC, also stated that they were glad to see the study canceled. The study was stopped due to serious ethical concerns. “The way the study was designed was a big challenge.”

Unfortunately, the unnecessary deaths from our defunct federal Public Health Policy do not stop in Africa; it also affects the US antivaxxer beliefs, which may soon be driving deaths in Africa, but they are well underway in driving measles deaths in the US. Pennsylvania recently reported its sixth measles-associated death, with over 1286 cases in the state. This growing epidemic, as of October 19, 2026, now has 4,603 cases, making our country just shy of the top 10 countries in the world for total measles cases.

Current efforts to resurrect the Tuskegee II experiment are reprehensible. An almost certain outcome is that infants will be needlessly infected with hepatitis B. If the infection is contracted in childhood, 90% newborns infected during childbirth will develop a chronic infection, and almost 25% of those infected will die in adulthood from chronic liver disease.

As backward as we believe Africa is compared to the US, on the issues of ethics and vaccine safety, the African CDC appears to be far ahead of the US.

However, the international outcry of condemnation may be having an effect. On October 13, 2026, Guinea-Bissau’s Minister of Health denied it had approved the hepatitis B birth dose vaccine trial, contradicting reports last week that Guinea-Bissau officials had given approval.

Other needless African deaths have also been caused by the US’s disruption of its HIV initiative (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief [PEPFAR]) with the excuse that these funds were needed for America First initiatives. And now our country is funding a Danish research study in Africa with questionable ethics, which public health experts project will again cause numerous unnecessary deaths.

The goal of the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is to eliminate this disease. We have the tools to do this, and let’s not dial back our efforts by decades because we want to investigate nonexistent issues, voiced by nonscientific and vaccine conspiracy theorists.