CDC changes hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for newborns
· UPIDec. 5 (UPI) -- The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices on Friday morning voted to delay giving most children their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, if they receive it all.
After delaying the vote by one day over the committee's confusion about the vote, the ACIP voted 8-2 to recommend that babies whose mothers have tested negative for hepatitis B do not receive the shot until they are two months old.
Not only would doctors be advised to delay the vaccine, which has been given to newborns within 24 hours of birth since 1991, for mothers without the infection, but the new recommendation suggests individual decision-making as to whether the child would ever start the three-shot vaccine series.
"This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children," Susan J. Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a press release.
"There is no new or concerning information about the hepatitis B vaccine that is prompting this change, nor has children's risk of contracting hepatitis B changed. Instead, this is the result of a deliberate strategy to sow fear and distrust among families," Kressly said.
The AAP said it continues to recommend the routine vaccination schedule against hepatitis B that has been in place for more than 30 years: a first dose within 24 hours of birth, a second dose at one to two months of age and a third dose at six months.
The vaccine was first introduced in the United States in 1981 using a risk-based strategy for decisions on whether to give the shot but doctors, liver specialists and public health professionals pushed for a better method for preventing the incurable infection -- which led to the universal recommendation in 1991.
Amesh A. Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told UPI that the change is significant both in terms of medical decision-making, as well as an overall move by the Department of Health and Human Services against the use of vaccines.
"The universal recommendation stems from actual data showing that [the vaccine] would diminish transmission of hepatitis B and decrease the burden of infection," Adalja said, noting that before the vaccine, cases of the infection were higher.
According to the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota, the rate of pediatric hepatitis B incidence has declined by 99% since 1991, even as 17,000 babies per year are born with the infection because roughly 18% of pregnant women do not receive hepatitis B testing.
"There's no data to support this two months of age suggest," ACIP member Raymond Pollak said before the vote.
"No one has presented any data as to why one month, two month, three month or four months is a preferred time to administer the first dose," Pollak, a retired surgeon, transplant and immunobiologist, said before he voted no.
The changes to hepatitis B vaccine recommendations are only the latest that HHS has altered under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., since he was confirmed to run the department.
After dismissing all 17 members of the committee after taking over the department, he has stocked it with a hand-picked selection of voices, many of whom are skeptical of vaccines, leading to changes for COVID-19, influenza, measles and other vaccine recommendations that experts have called concerning and potentially dangerous.
"This continues to illustrate how Sec. Kennedy's anti-vaccine nihilism has come to completely contaminate all of the Department of Health and Human Services," Adalja said. "This hepatitis B vaccination vote is not the end of his Dark Ages efforts."
This week in Washington
Attorney General Pam Bondi (C), FBI Director Kash Patel (R), U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and others hold a press conference at the Department of Justice Headquarters on Thursday. The FBI arrested Brian Cole of Virginia, who is believed to be responsible for placing pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021, insurrection. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo