Asanda Zondi received a shocking phone call last Thursday, with orders to go to a Health Clinic in Vendella, South Africa, where she was participating in a research study to prevent pregnancy and H.IV Was examining a new device. Infection
A nurse told her that the trial was closed. The device, the silicone ring entered into its vagina, needed to be removed right now.
When the 22 -year -old Ms Zondi arrived at the clinic, she learned why: the US Agency for International Development, which provided financial support for this study, withdrew financial support and she stopped all organizations around the world. The work order was issued that receives its money. . The sudden move frozen all foreign aid for at least 90 days after President Trump’s executive order. Since then, the Trump administration has taken steps to completely abolish the agency.
Ms Zondi’s case is one of the dozens, which has suddenly been frozen, leaving people around the world to leave experimental drugs and medical products into their bodies, disconnected from the researchers who were monitoring them. And create waves of doubts and fear.
The Department of State, which now oversees USAID, responded to a reporter to comment by a reporter USAID.goV, which is no longer available, except that all permanent employees are kept on administrative leave. Foreign Secretary Marco Rubio has said that the agency is useless and pushes a liberal agenda that is contested by President Trump’s foreign policy.
In the interview, scientists-who prohibit the terms of the stopwork order to talk to the news media-described the harassing choice: violating stopwork orders and taking care of trial volunteers, Or leave them alone to face the possible side. Impact and Damage
America is going to sign Helsinki’s announcement This contains ethical principles under which medical research should be done, it requires that researchers take care of the participants during each case, and inform the results of their results to communities where trials were conducted.
Ms Zondi said she was surprised and frightened. He spoke to other women who volunteered to study this study. “Some people are scared because we do not know what the reason was,” he said. “We really don’t know the real reason to stop the study.”
The stopwork order was so quick and clear that the research staff would violate it if the investigating staff helped women remove the rings. But in South Africa, the AIDS Program of Research (known as Caperea), and Dr. Leila Mansoor, a scientist at the trial investigator, decided that he and his team would do so. ۔
Dr. Mansour said, “When I saw this order, my first thought is, people have circles in the bodies and you cannot leave them.” “Ethics and participants come first for me. There is a line.
In these communities where its organization works, people have been volunteering for more than 25 years to test HIV treatment, prevention products and vaccine, which in many important developments in the field. Help has been helped and people around the world have benefited.
Dr. Mansoor said the work depended on the web of carefully built confidence that has now been destroyed. It took many years in South Africa, where during the years of white governance, the colorful government conducted medical experiments on black people. These concerns have been recovered in a long history of experiments by researchers and drug companies in developing countries and in the United States.
The Times identified more than 30 frozen studies, which were already volunteers to care for researchers, including cases:
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Treatment of malaria in children under 5 years in Mozambique
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Cholera treatment in Bangladesh
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Screen and treatment method for cervical cancer in Malawi
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Tuberculosis for children and adolescents in Peru and South Africa
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Nutrition help for children in Ethiopia
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Interfere with early child growth in Cambodia
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Ways to help pregnant and lactating women to reduce malnutrition in Jordan
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An MRNA vaccine technology for HIV in South Africa
It is difficult to know whether the total number of trials is closed, or how many people are affected, because in recent times the rapid demolition of USAID has eliminated public records. Apart from the disability website, the agency no longer has a communication department. And the stopwork order prohibits publicly to talk about what has happened to any implementation agency.
In England, about 100 people have been vaccinated with malaria experimental vaccines in two clinical trials. Now, they do not have access to clinical trial staff if the vaccine is a negative response to their bodies. The trial is an attempt to find a better next generation vaccine used in Africa. This shot protects children from about one -third of malaria, but researchers hoped to get a vaccine in which to offer a lot of protection. Malaria is a high -ranking child killer. In 2023, 600,000 people died of the disease, the latest data is available.
If the trial was not frozen, the participants would come to the clinic regularly for minor physical effects, and take blood and cell samples to find out if the vaccine was working. The purpose of the participants is to follow for two years to assess the safety of the vaccine.
A scientist who worked in the trial said he hoped that a partner at Oxford University, where he is being held, is changing the staff. For But he was fired last week and is no longer accessed any information about the case. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared his ability to work on malaria research was feared to endanger the United States in the future.
He said, “It is immoral to test anything in human beings, which can be fulfilled without any education.” “You put them in danger for no reason.”
If a stop work order came later this year, the new vaccine volunteers would probably be even more uncertain. They were deliberately scheduled to be affected by malaria to find out if the experimental vaccine had saved them from the disease.
Dr. Sharon Hillier, a professor of reproductive infectious diseases at the University of Pittsburg, was a five -year -old director this week, which has been funded by USAID to protect and test six new HIV prevention products. These include biomeal injection, fast -dosling vagina and vaginal ring.
With the suspension of this research, they and his partner cannot take action on biological patterns, not analyzing the data they have already collected, or from participants or partners in those countries. Can’t get the results where the cases were heard. These are the requirements under the Helsinki agreement.
Dr. Hillier said, “We have betrayed the confidence of the ministries and disciplinary agencies in the countries where we were working and the women who were willing to join our education, who were told that they thought they Will be kept. ” “I have never seen anything like this in 40 years of international research in my 40 years. It is immoral, it is dangerous and it is careless.
Even the trials that did not provide full or partial financing through USAID have been put on the riot because they were using medical or development infrastructure that the agency supported. And now he doesn’t work. Millions of dollars of US taxpayers who have already spent to start these trials will not be retrieved.
There are also shutdown business results. Many of these trials were in partnership with US drug companies, testing the products they hope they will sell abroad.
“It has made it impossible for pharmaceutical companies to do research in these countries,” said Dr. Hillier.
Another HIV trial, known as Catalist, has thousands of volunteers in five countries, including an injection drug, which is called long -acting cabotravir. Participants were receiving biochemidal injections to maintain enough drug levels in their bodies to avoid HIV infection. Without regular injections, or carefully organized for drug use, participants will not have enough cabotagroer to prevent new infection, but will be enough in their system that, if they want to contract the virus, ease Can change. Dr. Kenneth Nigur, president of the International AIDS Society, said that to avoid drugs.
This is also a significant threat to the trial volunteers and millions of people living with HIV as a cabotgrader has a deep connection to a drug that is already used worldwide in standard treatment of viruses. The development of resistance can be disastrous, Dr. Nigur said: “This is wrong at many levels – you just can’t stop.”
The Development Organization, a clinical trial, administered by the FHI 360, which implemented many USAI -financing health programs and studies, was examining the biodegradable hormonal implant to prevent pregnancy. Now there are women in the Dominican Republic whose body devices are undergoing care.
Another trial in Uganda was examining a new behavior of the treatment for children. Stop work order removes these children from potentially life -saving medicines.
“You can’t get away with them, you just can’t,” said a researcher at the trial.
