Herpes Vaccine Researcher Used Hotel Rooms To Experiment on People

An American herpes vaccine researcher vaccinated patients in U.S. hotel rooms in violation of U.S. law, three years before launching an offshore herpes vaccine trial, reported Marisa Taylor with Kaiser Health News (KHN). 

Southern Illinois University (SIU) associate professor William Halford Ph.D administered the vaccines himself at a Holiday Inn Express and a Crowne Plaza Hotel near campus.

Dr. Halford, who has passed away, injected at least 8 herpes patients on 4 separate appointments in the summer and fall of 2013 with a virus that he created, according to emails from 7 participants and interviews with 1 participant.

The 2013 experiments raise further questions of misconduct by Halford, who pursued a herpes vaccine for years while working at Southern Illinois University, which claims to have been unaware of his unorthodox research practices.

Dr. Halford ran a clinical trial out of a house on St. Kitts in 2016 to test the experimental vaccine and did not alert U.S. or St. Kitts and Nevis authorities.

Following a KHN report that Halford completed the 2016 trial with no independent safety oversight, the Department of Health and Human Services demanded the university account for the research.

SIU, in an initial response to U.S. authorities, said the university’s institutional review board found “serious noncompliance with regulatory requirements and institutional policies and procedures.”

SIU, like many universities receiving federal research funds, pledged to follow U.S. standards for all clinical trials.

Since Halford’s death in June, several participants who received the vaccine in 2013 and 2016 have told KHN they have informed the university about what they fear may be side effects from the vaccine.

American researchers are increasingly going offshore to developing countries to conduct clinical trials, citing rising domestic costs.

But in order to approve the drug for the U.S. market, the FDA requires that clinical trials involving human participants be reviewed and approved by an IRB or an international equivalent.

The IRB can reject research based on safety concerns.

Robert M. Califf, MD, who served as FDA commissioner in the Obama administration, said ‘he couldn’t think of a prior instance in which American researchers did not set up an IRB abroad.’

“There’s a tradition of having oversight of human experimentation, and it exists for good reasons. It may be legal to be doing it without oversight, but it’s wrong.” Dr. Califf said.

According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 24 million people in the United States are infected with HSV-2 and there are 776,000 new infections each year.

Approximately one out of every six people aged 14 to 49 years has an HSV-2 infection.

KHN’s coverage of these topics is supported by Laura and John Arnold Foundation and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation