Families Sue US Over 2 Black Infants in 1965 RSV Trial Without Consent
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 28
Families Sue US Over 2 Black Infants in 1965 RSV Trial Without Consent
7 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 28
A May 22 lawsuit accuses the U.S. government of wrongful death, lack of informed consent and civil battery after two Black infants were unknowingly enrolled in an experimental RSV vaccine trial in Washington, D.C., between 1965 and 1966.
Ross Otto Hambrick and Victor Marcellus King received the vaccine as babies and died about a year later—at 14 months and 16 months—from RSV complicated by bacterial pneumonia, according to the complaint.
The families say they learned of the boys' role in the study only after a 2023 Undark Magazine investigation traced their names through a government laboratory notebook and related records.
The suit seeks unspecified damages and says tissue samples taken at autopsy were crucial to developing the RSV vaccine now used worldwide, while the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
If unethical 1960s trials built today's vaccines, who is entitled to the billion-dollar profits?
Beyond this lawsuit, how can the medical system repair its broken trust with minority communities?
What other medical breakthroughs might be built upon a foundation of forgotten, unethical experiments?
Black Families Sue U.S. Government Over 1960s NIH RSV Vaccine Trial: Allegations of Unethical Testing and Tissue Use
Overview
On May 28, 2026, the families of Ross Otto Hambrick and Victor Marcellus King filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging that the National Institutes of Health targeted vulnerable Black infants from low-income families for an experimental RSV vaccine trial in the 1960s. The parents were not asked for consent, and the vaccine, known as 'Lot 100,' was highly concentrated and dangerous. Instead of protecting the children, the vaccine made their illness worse, leading to the deaths of two Black children in early 1967. This lawsuit seeks accountability for these historical injustices.