FLICKR, NIAIDOxford University scientists developing the MVA85A vaccine, intended as a booster to the established Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, misrepresented preclinical results to obtain funding and approval for a 2009 clinical trial in South Africa that failed to show any benefit, according to an investigation published in The BMJ yesterday (January 10).
In applications provided for funding and ethical and regulatory approval of the trial, as well as in the information given to parents enrolling their children as participants, the researchers included claims that the MVA85A booster had proven safe and more protective than BCG alone in multiple animal models. But according to the investigation, the team was “privately playing down or dismissing unsupportive experiments as ‘failed’ or irrelevant,” writes Deborah Cohen, associate editor at The BMJ. Indeed, a 2015 review by researchers at Stellenbosch University in South Africa found that animal study results for MVA85A did not support its use as a BCG booster.
Ewan McKendrick, registrar of Oxford University, tells The Independent that three separate investigations by Oxford University cleared the researchers of “any wrong-doing,” ...
