Lofgren Slams RFK Jr. for Disgraceful Plan to Fund Unethical Research on Infants in Guinea-Bissau

WASHINGTON, DC – Yesterday, it came to light that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) plans to provide funding for a group with proven ties to the U.S. anti-vaccine movement to conduct research on the Hepatitis B vaccine, using infants in Guinea-Bissau as its test subjects. This study comes after the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which now includes several vaccine skeptics, eliminated long-standing recommendations for Hepatitis B vaccines for newborns. The CDC intends to fund a five-year, randomized controlled trial in Guinea-Bissau of the hepatitis B vaccine — giving some infants the vaccine at birth and others the vaccine at 6 weeks of age. The study is considered highly unethical because it withholds a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies with the goal of promoting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda.

“This is a new low for the Trump administration," said Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren. "I am absolutely disgusted. To withhold a lifesaving vaccine from babies across the globe to promote your anti vaccine agenda at home is deplorable. How has it come to this? RFK Jr. must be stopped.”