“Another Tuskegee”: Leaked Docs Reveal CDC Is Funding Deadly Study

The Trump administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is funding a heavily flawed vaccine trial in west Africa that is being described as “another Tuskegee.”

The health newsletter Inside Medicine obtained the protocols for a study receiving $1.6 million to experiment on babies in Guinea-Bissau. The experiment is a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes,” according to a Federal Register notice. 

The comparisons to Tuskegee, an experiment in which the U.S. government let syphilis go unchecked in African Americans in Alabama from 1932 to 1972, came from an unnamed CDC official who spoke to Inside Medicine. 

“This is another Tuskegee,” the official said. “We are allowing children, infants, to be exposed to Hepatitis B when we could prevent it, and then follow them for five years to see what happens. That’s not long enough to see the long-term benefits, but might be long enough to find some non-specific effects.”

The experiment had raised ethical concerns at the time the funding grant was announced in December, with Professor Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine telling The Guardian that it “has set alarm bells ringing in the global health community.” The World Health Organization has recommended the hepatitis B vaccination at birth since 2009. 

But the experiment’s protocols not only legitimize those concerns, they raise them. Inside Medicine found that there’s no placebo in the trial, and that this experiment is studying  a vaccine known to be effective in order to find “non-specific effects” of vaccines. That’s language straight from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s echo chamber, as he and his fellow anti-vaxxers make unfounded claims that many vaccines have unknown harmful effects. 

The study is also flawed because hepatitis B causes serious problems later in life, not shortly after birth, so trying to measure mortality and morbidity is not likely to yield any useful conclusions right away. Plus, none of the vaccines in the study are FDA-approved, raising the question of why the CDC is funding a study of vaccines that aren’t available to Americans. 

Other issues in the trial include a lack of testing of mothers for hepatitis B, meaning that some of the babies at the highest risk for contracting it could be left without the vaccine, and that there’s no “stop” protocol in case the results are very bad for the participants. The Department of Health and Human Services is defending the study by claiming Guinea-Bissau isn’t mandating the hepatitis B vaccine until 2027 anyway.

However, the $1.6 million grant could instead be used to vaccinate Guinea-Bissau’s children for a decade against hepatitis B, calling into question the usefulness of this experiment. 

All of this seems to confirm that Kennedy’s views are now becoming U.S. government and CDC policy, with eugenics-style experiments being given the green light in an attempt to legitimize anti-vaccine views. How many experiments like this will there be, and how many lives will be lost? 

President Trump is keeping proceeds from the first sale of Venezuelan oil in an offshore bank account based in Qatar, according to reporting from Semafor. The sale was worth $500 million.

This unprecedented move is yet another middle finger to Venezuelan sovereignty and once again raises questions about the president’s cozy relationship with the Qatari government.

“There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so that he can sell assets seized by the American military,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren told Semafor. “That is precisely a move that a corrupt politician would be attracted to.”

That seems to be exactly what Trump is doing. Trump has vowed to “indefinitely” control Venezuela’s oil, claiming the proceeds will be given back to the U.S. and Venezuela.

Still, it remains unclear just how that money held in Qatar will benefit the Venezuelan people the administration claims to care about.

President Donlad Trump threatened Thursday to send the U.S. military into Minnesota, following the state’s second shooting involving a federal officer in as many weeks.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Protests in Minneapolis escalated Wednesday night after a federal agent shot and injured a Venezuelan immigrant fleeing from a traffic stop. The Department of Homeland Security claimed that the man and two others attacked a federal agent with a snow shovel and a broom handle, causing the officer to fear for his life. This claim has not been independently verified.

At least 200 protesters gathered near the apparent scene, launching fireworks at police officers, who deployed gas in order to disperse the crowd, but it didn’t work, The New York Times reported. Heavily armed Border Patrol agents arrived but were beaten back by protesters wielding snowballs, and unleashed a chemical gas on the crowd before they went. Shortly after, ICE agents arrived in an unmarked vehicle and sprayed chemicals in the protesters’ faces. One protester fired several fireworks toward the agents’ vehicle as they departed.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed on X Wednesday that the so-called “Minnesota Insurrection” was the “direct result of a FAILED governor and a TERRIBLE mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement.” Addressing Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Blanche wrote that he was “focused on stopping YOU from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It’s a promise.”

This latest shooting comes just one week after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, sparking widespread outrage at the killing of an American citizen. The Trump administration claimed that Good had been attempting to ram federal agents in an act of so-called “domestic terror,” but video evidence suggests otherwise. Trump most recently claimed her death was the result of being “disrespectful” of law enforcement.

It seems that the Trump administration has been actively provoking unrest in Minnesota, deploying an additional 1,000 federal immigration officers after Good’s death, targeting the states with racist smears about Somali immigrants, and suspending funding to childcare programs. In recent weeks, some have speculated that invoking the Insurrection Act was Trump’s plan all along, as part of a master plan to seize control—and even suspend elections.

This story has been updated.

ICE has shot another person in Minneapolis, raising tensions in an already inflamed atmosphere.

The Department of Homeland Security said that an ICE officer shot a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis Wednesday night after he attacked agents during a traffic stop. Following the shooting, a crowd of protesters gathered, setting off fireworks and throwing snowballs at federal agents. Law enforcement responded with chemical irritants, and Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told people to “leave immediately.”

The shooting took place about 4.5 miles away from where Renee Good was shot last week, according to a DHS statement. DHS said that they tried to stop the undocumented man, only for him to drive away and then take off on foot after crashing into a car. DHS claims that when they reached the person, two other people from a nearby apartment arrived and attacked an ICE agent.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said. According to the city of Minneapolis, the Venezuelan man escaped with non-life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized.

The Trump administration seems to be bent on making the situation worse in Minneapolis. More agents are being sent to the city, even as many of them are miserable and feel the government is making things worse. Agents are reportedly going door to door looking for Asian immigrants, federal prosecutors are quitting rather than follow the administration’s orders, and even podcaster Joe Rogan has turned on the White House over ICE’s violence.

President Trump claims that a “DAY OF RECKONING” is coming for Minnesota. He may be right, but not in the way he thinks. The backlash is only growing larger.

The brutality Americans are witnessing from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is just the tip of the iceberg: The agency is reportedly running nearly two dozen secret operations to spy on all of us.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Wednesday that he’d received a “sensitive” 15-page government document outlining 21 “major” ICE operations leaked by a concerned Border Patrol official. These operations, many of which had previously gone unreported, have resulted in 6,852 apprehensions since June, according to the document.

One document outlined a program called Operation Abracadabra, which is the process of interviewing 100 percent of detainees in order to identify follow-on targets, such as stash houses, in order to “target transnational criminal corporations.”

A leaked slide explained Operation Abracadabra’s purpose as “tying every individual who crosses the border illegally to a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a Transnational Criminal Organization, and/or utilizing the intelligence to develop targets.”

Another program was Operation Benchwarmer, a plan to use plainclothes agents “embedded in transport vans, sally ports, processing areas, and detention cells” to secretly spy on immigrants who have been detained. That operation already includes 2,000 “intelligence assets” across the country.

Another “secret” program Klippenstein mentioned was Operation Tidal Wave, a state-wide operation in Florida that led to the arrests of 1,120 people, only 63 percent of whom had a criminal record. Another, Operation Fleur De Lis, could potentially refer to an operation in Louisiana where the Department of Homeland Security deployed CBP agents in November. The goal of another operation, called “Dust Off,” was less clear.

President Trump once again appeared to doze off on camera during a milk legislation signing ceremony on Wednesday afternoon.

The president’s eyes were completely shut at multiple points of the ceremony. He can be seen looking drowsily on as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins drones on about milk, while flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Housing Secretary Ben Carson.

This would mark at least the third time since December that Trump has seemed to doze off during a televised event, although it may have been his first on-camera nap of the new year.

After he woke up, Trump signed legislation allowing public schools to serve whole and 2 percent milk, reversing an Obama-era policy that limited schools to fat-free or low-fat options.

He then went on to clarify how to spell “whole milk.” “It’s actually a legal definition—‘whole milk.’ And it’s whole with a w, for those of you that have a problem.”

Need any more proof that CBS News is being transformed into a mouthpiece for Donald Trump’s administration? Look no further than its latest “story” about Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, an American citizen and mother of three.

CBS News posted on X Wednesday morning that Ross had “suffered internal bleeding to the torso” after shooting Good in her vehicle, citing “two U.S. officials briefed on his medical condition.”

The post, which supported the Trump administration’s dubious claims that Ross fired “defensive shots” because his life was in danger, was not accompanied by a link to an actual story.

This claim boosted by CBS News did, however, directly contradict video analysis that suggested Ross was not in the path of the vehicle when he fired the three shots. Rather, Ross braced his hand on the hood of Good’s vehicle while it moved forward and shot her three times as she turned her car away from him and other ICE agents. In additional footage from after the incident, Ross walked up and down the street, appearing unharmed.

Readers were furious that CBS News had boosted the government’s claim without appearing to have done any further reporting.

“No reporting. No story attached. No evidence. Just straightforward state propaganda,” wrote one user on X.

MeidasTouch’s Ron Filipkowski suggested that the story didn’t pass the smell check. “Who are the ‘two US officials’ and why would CBS give them anonymity when they are just putting something out there that DHS and ICE obviously wants put out,” he wrote on X. “Who are these ‘US officials’ and why are they granted anonymity???”

Another user pointed out that Ross would likely have been protected from injury by his Kevlar vest, while another claimed the vehicle would have only been moving four miles per hour maximum, which was not enough to cause internal bleeding. Other users demanded to see Ross’s medical report in order to verify the government’s claim.

Two hours later, CBS News finally posted an actual story, which repeated the same scant information and used the same anonymous sources.

“It was unclear how extensive the bleeding was. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed Ross’s injury, but has not yet responded to CBS News’ requests for more information,” the article read.

The Department of Homeland Security attempted to discredit a journalist Wednesday and was quickly embarrassed.

On Tuesday, Slate published a bombshell article by Laura Jedeed outlining how she had somehow slipped through ICE’s screening process to be offered a job by the agency despite failing to complete any of the required paperwork, including a background check. The next day, DHS tried to claim Jedeed’s article was “such a lazy lie.”

“This individual was NEVER offered a job at ICE,” the agency posted on X. “Applicants may receive a Tentative Selection Letter following their initial application and interview that is not a job offer. It just means they are invited to submit information for review, similar to any other applicant.”

Minutes later, Jedeed, who has contributed to The New Republic in the past, was ready with receipts.

“You sure about that?” Jedeed posted in a quote of DHS’s post, including video of the ICE Recruitment and Hiring Portal, which she could only access if she had been offered a position at the agency.

Jedeed wrote that she never expected to receive an actual job offer when she began her story, as she’s a journalist who writes for left-leaning publications and believed ICE would catch on soon enough. ICE’s recruitment strategies were already considered questionable prior to Jedeed’s article, but now their screening practices can be described as practically nonexistent. Disturbingly, Jedeed has exposed why so many ICE agents seem to be comfortable with flouting the law and engaging in wanton violence: They’ll take anybody.

ICE agents are reportedly asking Minnesota residents to tell them where their Asian neighbors live, as Vice President JD Vance’s promise of “door to door” ICE raids is being realized. And somehow, people on the right are still mad when ICE gets compared to Nazi storm troopers.

Elizabeth Lugert-Thom, a resident of St. Paul, warned in a Facebook post last week that two federal officers had asked her to identify the Hmong and Asian households in her North End neighborhood, according to The Chicago Tribune.

Lugert-Thom said that the officers who’d knocked on her door were not displaying their badges clearly, and did not identify themselves before they began questioning her about a picture of someone they were searching for.

“They said, ‘This is for your safety. We need to find this person,’” Lugert-Thom recalled to the Tribune in a story published Monday.

Lugert-Thom told the ICE agents she didn’t “know anything about that.” In response, she said they asked, “Well, what about the Asian families?”

Lugert-Thom said she was evasive with her answers and did not direct the officers to any of her neighbors. In her Facebook post, she wrote that she’d been “asked to identify Hmong/Asian households in my neighborhood.”

She told the Tribune she’d posted about the interaction on Facebook because “I was a bit shaken and a bit shocked of what I was asked to do.”

It’s hard not to see the similarities between ICE’s door-to-door campaign in Minnesota and the actions of officers during another totalitarian dictatorship that sought to weed out members of ethnic groups their leader blamed for all the nation’s ills.

So far, at least 100 people have been detained by ICE and sent to Texas for deportation processing, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Most of them have been Somali immigrants, but others have hailed from Myanmar and Eritrea. Immigration forces have continued to arrest refugees who entered the country legally and were in the midst of legally obtaining citizenship before the Trump administration suspended all green card processing.

The number of Asian immigrants arrested by ICE surged between February and July 2025, tripling from 1,054 arrests during the same period of the Biden administration to 3,705 arrests, according to one study. The number of noncriminal detainees outnumbered those with criminal convictions by two to one.

White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller delivered an unsettling affirmation to the thousands of federal agents violently attacking and abducting people in neighborhoods across the country.

“To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties, and anybody who lays a hand on you, or tries to stop you, or tries to obstruct you, is committing a felony,” Miller declared Tuesday on The Will Cain Show on Fox. “You have immunity to perform your duties and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”

“The Department of Justice has made clear that if officials cross that line into obstruction, into criminal conspiracy against the United States or against ICE officers, then they will face justice,” he added.

The Department of Homeland Security then made sure to amplify Miller’s message.

Miller’s message comes just one week after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, and as a growing number of federal agents descend on the city.

The Trump administration is closing their eyes, plugging their ears, and screaming about immunity as loudly as they can while their ICE agents beat, maim, and kill people protesting their militant mass immigration raids. Miller’s proclamation will only give these agents—many of them deeply partisan and inexperienced volunteers—even more power to continue their violence.

“REMINDER: To all members of the Trump administration. The incitement and engagement in state violence against the American people is a serious crime. Donald Trump will leave office long before the five-year statute of limitations expires,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on X, although it’s unclear what exactly he plans on doing at this moment in time. “You are hereby put on notice.”

“Miller will be directly responsible for the next American that an ICE agent kills,” Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan chimed in. “This is a greenlight for abuse and has no basis in actual law.”