$1.6 Million Grant Awarded for Hepatitis B Vaccine Research

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has awarded an unsolicited $1.6 million grant for vaccine research to Danish researchers whose studies have been challenged by mainstream scientists but championed by anti-vaccine activists, including Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

According to a notice in the Federal Register, CDC is paying the University of Southern Denmark to conduct a single-blind clinical trial of the hepatitis B vaccine in newborns in Guinea-Bissau, a small country in West Africa with exceptionally high rates of maternal and infant mortality, where nearly one in five people are infected with the hepatitis B virus. Although the federal announcement did not include the names of the researchers, the Danish university’s Bandim Health Project, which has conducted vaccine research in the developing African country for decades, has acknowledged being awarded the CDC grant. The Bandim project leaders have claimed to find “non-specific effects” from vaccines — some good and some bad — that they say should change how vaccine safety studies are conducted.

The new study was awarded without any competition from any other scientists, giving it “the appearance of blatant cronyism,” said Angela Rasmussen, PhD, a virologist and professor at the University of Saskatchewan.

In June, Kennedy used a single study by the Bandim group to justify canceling more than $1 billion in funding for childhood vaccinations in developing countries. The observational study found an increased risk of death in children who received a combined vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis that hasn’t been used in the United States in three decades. 

Scientists say people shouldn’t put too much faith in that study, which is an outlier and conflicts with hundreds of studies showing vaccines are safe and save lives. Instead, they say, researchers and policymakers normally consider the totality of scientific evidence on vaccines, rather than a single study, which may be flawed.