Key Takeaways
- Ben Crump filed a federal lawsuit alleging two infants were enrolled in a 1960s Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine trial without family consent.
- The complaint connects the alleged study to NIH research and raises questions about how the trial was conducted.
- The claims were previously examined in a 2023 Undark investigation, and attorneys plan to address the case publicly in Washington, D.C.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing the families of two Black infants in a federal lawsuit accusing the U.S. government of allegedly using the children in experimental Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine trials during the 1960s without their families’ knowledge or consent.
RSV is a common respiratory virus that can cause serious breathing complications in infants, older adults and people with underlying health conditions. Today, RSV vaccines are primarily recommended for older adults, high-risk individuals and pregnant people to help protect newborns from severe illness.
According to a press release from Ben Crump Law, the complaint states that the infants, Ross Otto Hambrick and Victor Marcellus King, were secretly enrolled in an NIH-sponsored vaccine study before both boys died in January 1967. Now, nearly 60 years later, their families are demanding accountability from the federal government over what attorneys describe as a disturbing chapter in American medical history.
The lawsuit, filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, reportedly alleges that the National Institutes of Health selected Black infants from low-income families to participate in a highly concentrated experimental RSV vaccine trial known as “Lot 100.” Lawyers representing the families claim the boys’ tissue samples were later used in research that contributed to RSV vaccines approved by the FDA in 2023.
The release further claims that the families were never fully informed about the experiments and that they were never compensated or publicly acknowledged for the role the children’s deaths reportedly played in decades of RSV research. “The legal team is seeking justice on behalf of the Hambrick and King families, demanding full accountability from the United States government,” the release stated.
Crump is representing the families alongside attorneys William H. Murphy Jr., Carol Lexing Powell, Malcolm P. Ruff and Nabeha Shaer.
The history behind the alleged RSV vaccine experiments on Black infants
The allegations connected to the lawsuit were previously examined in a 2023 investigation by Undark, which detailed the early history of RSV vaccine research and the deaths of Hambrick and King. According to the outlet, both children reportedly received doses of the experimental vaccine as infants through programs tied to a children’s hospital in Washington, D.C.
The report also stated that many of the youngest participants in the study were Black children from working-class families and that informed consent standards during the 1960s were far less regulated than they are today. “We’re not surprised,” Darius Chisholm, King’s brother, told Undark in 2023. “It’s just American history.”
The attorneys are expected to discuss the lawsuit during a news conference on Thursday (May 28) afternoon in D.C. The federal government has not publicly responded to the allegations.