Home Science When MAGA Antivax Funds African Research

When MAGA Antivax Funds African Research

5
0

When MAGA anti-vaxxers fund African research

By Jules Villa

The Republic of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa (2.1 million inhabitants) is classified among the twenty least developed countries in the world based on its human development index. Maternal and infant mortality rates are high, and primary healthcare is not accessible to all households. The country is particularly affected by the hepatitis B virus, with nearly one in five people infected.

When MAGA Antivax Funds African Research
advertisement

Guinea-Bissau has been at the center of a controversy involving medical research early this year about the conduct of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The media coverage and the energy deployed by many scientists to bring attention to this situation for a study of this type, albeit quite modest, have been exceptional and deserve examination.

American pediatrician Paul Offit referred to this study as a “new Tuskegee,” invoking the specter of a clinical study conducted in Tuskegee, Alabama, between 1932 and 1972 where doctors observed the progression of syphilis in poor African-American men deliberately deprived of treatment. This historical parallel is based on the study not being founded on a credible scientific basis but on the deliberate exposure of a group of participants to a prejudice that could be avoided and fueled by a complex of racism.

The randomized controlled trial was designed by researchers from the Bandim Health Project, a research station established in 1978 in Guinea-Bissau by Danish researchers. It received funding of $1.6 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States, under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) led by Robert Kennedy. The study aims to randomly allocate 14,000 newborns in Guinea-Bissau into two groups, to be vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth (intervention group), or to

Author: Jules Villa, Political Scientist, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institut Pasteur (Anthropology and Ecology of Emerging Infections Unit), Research Associate at Medialab SciencesPo