According to a new investigation by Kaiser Health News, William Halford, associate professor at Southern Illinois University, conducted illegal trials to develop a herpes vaccine during which he injected herpes virus to people in hotel rooms and at a house on the island of St. Kitts.

Halford, who died of cancer in June, administered his experimental shots to at least eight herpes patients on four different occasions in the summer and fall of 2013. He ran a clinical trial out of a house on St. Kitts in 2016 to test the experimental vaccine.

SIU claimed it had no role, responsibility, or knowledge of the 2016 trial on St. Kitts, because Halford pursued it through Rational Vaccines, a company he co-founded in 2015 to market and research the herpes vaccine.

However, the university shared a patent on the herpes injection with Rational Vaccines, and promoted Halford’s research on its website. Moreover, when