I participated in the AstraZeneca trial in the UK. I dropped out after learning they were collaborating with Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.

I participated in the AstraZeneca trial in the UK. I dropped out after learning they were collaborating with Russia’s Sputnik vaccine.

Sarah Hurst is a 47-year-old freelance journalist based outside of London, where she lives with her mother and 12-year-old daughter.

She was in AstraZeneca's UK trial for the COVID-19 vaccine, and left last week in protest at the company's announcement that they would work with Russia's Sputnik vaccine developers.

Hurst has been writing about Russia since 1990 and sees AstraZeneca's collaboration with Russia as unethical and ill-advised, particularly due to the lack of transparency around Sputnik's development.

"I was devastated. I felt betrayed... and furious that instead of working to bring more of Putin's killers to justice, some in the West apparently want to reward him," writes Hurst.

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When I heard the news that AstraZeneca was going to work with Russia's Gamaleya Centre to test combinations of the Oxford coronavirus vaccine and the Sputnik V vaccine, I was devastated. I felt betrayed by a prestigious scientific team that was supposed to be winning over the vaccine skeptics. At my last trial appointment a few weeks ago, where I gave a blood sample, I had joked with the medical student who saw me about the Sputnik vaccine. Neither of us trusted it, and we wanted to