A newly filed lawsuit against the U.S. government alleges that two Black infants were unknowingly enrolled in an experimental RSV vaccine trial in Washington, D.C., during the 1960s and later died after contracting the respiratory illness. The families of Ross Otto Hambrick and Victor Marcellus King say they only recently learned of the children's involvement in the research and are now seeking accountability for what they describe as a lack of informed consent and wrongful death.
According to the complaint, which was obtained by The New York Times, the infants received doses of an experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine between 1965 and 1966 as part of a federal research effort to combat a virus that remains a leading cause of serious respiratory illness in young children. The lawsuit claims neither family was informed that the babies were participating in a vaccine study. Both children later developed severe respiratory complications associated with RSV and bacterial pneumonia. Victor died on Jan. 1, 1967, at 16 months old, while Ross died a day later at 14 months old.
The legal action follows a 2023 investigation by Undark Magazine that reportedly uncovered government records linking the infants to the trial. The report identified the boys in laboratory notebooks connected to researchers working on an early RSV vaccine. Family members say they were unaware of the connection until journalists contacted them decades later.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the families, accused researchers of prioritizing vaccine development over patient welfare.
“It was never about the health and safety of these babies,” Crump said during a recent news conference. “It was all about the ruthless pursuit of getting the vaccine to get to market, to turn it into profit.”
The lawsuit also alleges that tissue samples taken during the boys’ autopsies contributed to research that eventually helped pave the way for modern RSV vaccines.
RSV remains a major public health concern today. The virus is highly contagious and typically causes cold-like symptoms, but it can lead to pneumonia, bronchiolitis, and hospitalization in infants, older adults, and people with underlying health conditions.
In 2023, federal regulators approved the first RSV vaccines for adults, marking a significant milestone after decades of research. Infants whose mothers did not receive an RSV vaccine during pregnancy may also receive protective antibody treatments shortly after birth.
Bioethicist Harriet Washington told The New York Times that while modern research regulations were less developed in the 1960s, ethical standards requiring informed consent already existed. She argued that those protections were often applied unevenly, particularly to marginalized communities.
The case arrives amid renewed scrutiny of historic medical experiments involving Black Americans, including the treatment of Henrietta Lacks' cells without consent and the decades-long Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
