The World Health Organization (WHO) condemned a US-funded vaccine trial as unethical, citing its decision to withhold a safe and potentially life-saving hepatitis B vaccine from newborns in Guinea-Bissau, Africa. The WHO's formal statement, released on Friday, concluded the trial was inconsistent with established ethical and scientific principles, according to Ars Technica.
The trial, which has drawn widespread criticism from health experts since the US funding was announced in the Federal Register in December, was criticized by the WHO for several reasons. The organization provided a bullet-point list detailing the trial's harmful and low-quality aspects, Ars Technica reported.
In other news, Amazon and Flock Safety ended a partnership that would have granted law enforcement access to a vast network of Ring cameras. This decision followed significant backlash over a Super Bowl advertisement that many found disturbing and dystopian, according to Ars Technica and Wired. The ad, which began with a heartwarming scene of a girl receiving a puppy, took a turn by introducing a "Search Party" feature for Ring cameras to locate missing pets.
Meanwhile, five European nations accused the Kremlin of poisoning Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny with a lethal toxin derived from poison dart frogs. The foreign ministries of the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands released this information on Saturday, according to NPR Politics.
In related news, Jim O'Neill, the US deputy health secretary, discussed plans to increase human healthspan through longevity-focused research supported by ARPA-H, a federal agency dedicated to biomedical breakthroughs. O'Neill, who oversees a department with a budget of over a trillion dollars, signed the decision memorandum on the US's controversial new vaccine schedule, according to MIT Technology Review. Following the publication of this story, Politico reported that O'Neill would be leaving his current roles within the Department of Health and Human Services.
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