Communication Science Unit, The Media School, Indiana University Bearing in mind the key role that the legacy media in developing contexts play in health communication and public health campaigns., understanding discourses about vaccines in the media merits research. Even apart from vaccine hesitancy or vaccine trial controversies, the media play a role in providing information for individuals to create vaccination-related views and attitudes. Using a sociological lens that draws on moral panic and risk society theories, this study analyses discourses in the media that led to the June 2015 suspension of proposed Ebola vaccine trials in Ghana. It highlights the complexity and challenges of undertaking vaccine tests in societies where the notion of drug trials has underlying historical and sociological baggage that determine whether the trials proceed.