Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s federal vaccine advisory committee has voted to end a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.
The government has advised for decades that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.
But RFK Jr.’s committee voted to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive or whose infection status is unknown.
For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate.
For parents who don’t get the birth dose, vaccinations against hepatitis B are advised to start no sooner than 2 months of age.
Some committee members said most babies are at low risk for infection and argued that past studies to look at possible harms from the vaccine were small and potentially inadequate to detect long-term harms.
Many medical and doctors groups voiced alarm in anticipation of the vote, saying the concerns were speculative and the decision will mean more children will be infected.
The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jim O’Neill, is expected to decide later whether to accept the committee’s recommendation.
Vote delayed after chaotic meeting
The vote came a day after the vaccine advisers hand-picked by RFK Jr. seemed confused about what they were voting for in regards to the Hep B shot.
Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — who were appointed by Kennedy earlier this year — appeared puzzled about the vote scheduled for Thursday after the language was altered several times, CNN reported.
As a result, the vote was pushed back to Friday.
“This is the third version of the questions that most of the [ACIP] received in 72 hours,” Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a member of the committee, said Thursday. “We’re trying to evaluate a moving target.”
It’s not the first time a vote on hepatitis B vaccines has been delayed.
The committee was initially expected to cast votes on proposed changes to hepatitis B immunizations in September. But, it was rescheduled after there was not sufficient evidence to ensure a “confident evidence-based recommendation,” Dr. Robert Malone, the ACIP vice chair, said.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, fired all 17 members of the committee this summer. He replaced them with eight new members who he said were “committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense.”
But, the move concerned some medical experts, who noted at the time that some new members have been critical of immunizations.
While the committee’s guidelines aren’t determinative, the CDC typically follows its recommendations. The guidelines influence doctors’ advice to patients, shape state vaccine policies and help determine insurance coverage.
