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A CDC advisory panel has opted to end the decades-long recommendation that all babies in the U.S. get a hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of being born.
The panel’s hepatitis B decision was met with swift backlash Friday from medical and public health experts. The entire vaccine advisory panel was appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal vaccine skeptic who’s overseen other big changes to vaccine policy.
Hepatitis B vaccine changes
The backstory:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has for decades recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for babies to protect them from the serious liver infection.
FILE - Hepatitis B vaccine being ready to be administered at the city's immunization and travel clinic in San Francisco, Calif., on Monday, September 28, 2009. (Photo By Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
The shots are widely considered to be a public health success.
What we know:
The Kennedy-appointed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended that the birth dose only be given to babies whose mothers test positive, and in cases where the mom wasn’t tested, according to The Associated Press.
RELATED: CDC changes website to question safety of vaccines, disproven links to autism
For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide whether a baby will get the vaccine at birth. The committee voted to suggest that when a family decides not to get a birth dose, then the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.
Committee members said the risk of infection for most babies is very low and that earlier research that found the shots were safe for infants was inadequate.
They also argued that doctors and nurses often don’t give parents all the information about the pros and cons of the birth-dose vaccination.
Public health studies largely contradict the panel’s arguments. Since the introduction of universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth in 1991, infant infections have been nearly eliminated, with a 95% drop in pediatric cases, according to a University of Minnesota study.
The current vaccination strategy has prevented more than 6 million hepatitis B infections and nearly 1 million hepatitis B-related hospitalizations, the study found.
What we don't know:
Committee member Vicky Pebsworth said the panel’s decision came amid "pressure from stakeholder groups wanting the policy to be revisited," but she didn’t identify the stakeholders. Kennedy’s office has not responded to questions about the recommendation.
What they’re saying: "This is the group that can’t shoot straight," Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups, told the AP.
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"This is unconscionable," said committee member Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, who repeatedly voiced opposition to the proposal during the sometimes-heated two-day meeting.
What's next:
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.
The committee gives advice to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, which were widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. But the agency currently has no director, leaving acting director O’Neill to decide.
READ MORE: RFK Jr. ousts entire CDC vaccine panel
Kennedy fired the entire 17-member panel in June and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
What is hepatitis B?
Why you should care:
Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that, for most people, lasts less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-lasting problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and scarring called cirrhosis.
In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles during injection drug use. But it can also be passed from an infected mother to a baby.
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press.