RFK Jr.-Backed Baby Vaccine Trial Hit by Police Raid in Guinea-Bissau

A controversial hepatitis B study involving thousands of newborns in Guinea-Bissau has taken another dramatic turn: judicial police raided the Bandim Health Project’s offices and seized vaccine doses intended for the trial. The operation follows months of international criticism over the study’s design, its funding by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and its links to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The raid and seizure of the trial vaccines were reported on October 19.

The project is led by Danish researchers Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn, a married couple who have spent decades studying vaccination and child health through the Bandim Health Project. The CDC awarded their group an unsolicited $1.6 million grant in December 2025, while another $1.6 million was reportedly reserved in September as the Kennedy-led agency continued considering whether to support the work.

At the center of the dispute is a proposed randomized trial involving roughly 14,000 infants. Half would receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth, while the other half would receive it six weeks later. Hepatitis B infection can become lifelong and lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death, making the decision to delay the birth dose especially contentious in a country where the virus circulates.

Bandim’s researchers defend the protocol by arguing that Guinea-Bissau has not yet adopted hepatitis B vaccination at birth as part of its national program. Their published ethical defense says no child would receive less than the country’s existing standard of care, and that the study is intended to examine broader health effects of introducing the birth dose—not whether the vaccine protects against hepatitis B. The group says the protocol received approval from Guinea-Bissau’s national ethics committee and was developed through a long-running Danish–Guinean partnership.

That justification has not settled the argument. The World Health Organization has expressed “significant concerns” about the study’s scientific rationale, safeguards, and compatibility with accepted principles for human-subject research, warning that the publicly described design may not adequately minimize risk or guarantee participant benefit. The University of Southern Denmark has also approved the revised protocol, but its dean said final governmental authorization in Guinea-Bissau was still required before the trial could begin.

The controversy is intensified by the investigators’ relationship with Kennedy, who has repeatedly praised Aaby and Stabell Benn while promoting claims that vaccines can produce overlooked harms. Danish authorities are also investigating the researchers over alleged scientific misconduct. For now, the police action adds a legal and logistical obstacle to a project already caught between local ethics approval, disputed government authorization, international public-health guidance, and a U.S. administration eager to fund research aligned with its vaccine-skeptic agenda.

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Vaccine bottle and needle via Wikimedia Commons by CDC/James Gathany with usage type - Public Domain. By Photo Credit: James GathanyContent Providers(s): CDC - This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #2674.Note: Not all PHIL images are public domain; be sure to check copyright status and credit authors and content providers.العربية | Deutsch | English | македонски | slovenščina | +/−, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=367791