South Bay Lawmaker Slams Trump Admin’s $1.6 Million Hepatitis B Study in West Africa

A Bay Area lawmaker slammed a Trump administration plan to conduct research on the Hepatitis B vaccine on infants in Guinea-Bissau, where nearly one in five adults lives with the virus.

The grant, awarded to a group of Danish scientists with ties to the anti-vaccine movement, will fund a five-year randomized control trial in the West African nation. According to the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, 14,000 newborns will either receive the vaccine at birth or after a six-week delay to compare health outcomes.

South Bay Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San José) called the decision to approve the $1.6 million dollar study — which followed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rollback of newborn Hepatitis B vaccine recommendations last week — “deplorable” and a “new low.”

In a statement released Friday, Lofgren alleged the study is being used to promote U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “anti-vaccine agenda.”

“To withhold a lifesaving vaccine from babies across the globe to promote your anti-vaccine agenda at home is deplorable,” Lofgren said. “How has it come to this? RFK Jr. must be stopped.”

Since 1991, the CDC recommended newborns receive the Hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth.

In an email, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily G. Hilliard defended the award as an independent study designed to fill “evidence gaps” regarding the “broader health effects” of the vaccine. Hilliard noted that because Guinea-Bissau does not plan to officially introduce the birth dose until 2027, the infants not receiving the shot are still receiving the “current standard of care.”

Local medical experts, however, say the science behind the birth dose is already settled. Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University, said waiting six weeks to vaccinate newborns in a region where Hepatitis B is common will lead to “preventable infections.”

According to Scott, infants infected at birth have about a 90% chance of developing chronic hepatitis, which can lead to liver failure and cancer. He said the administration is attempting to “manufacture doubt” to justify the recent rollbacks.

“They’re doing that to generate evidence for a policy they have already implemented,” Scott said. “It’s clearly going to cause far more harm than any benefits.”

Scott estimated that if the birth dose is successfully rolled back on a larger scale, it could lead to 1,400 additional chronic pediatric infections and nearly 500 preventable deaths annually.

According to background information from the House Science Committee staff, the research group did not apply for an award through a standard competitive process; instead, staff said Kennedy specifically sought out the researchers.

“The typical way of going about it is to put out a request for proposal … and fund the most rigorous study,” Arthur Reingold, a former professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley and a former Chief of the Respiratory Diseases Branch at the CDC, said. “Obviously, that was not done in this case.”

Reingold added that without a detailed study protocol, it is impossible to know if the trial can actually measure the “broader health effects” HHS claims to be looking for. He warned that if a study lacks the statistical power to answer important questions, it is a “waste of money.”

The House Science Committee stated it is considering all oversight options, though staff noted their authority is currently limited by their status in the Minority.