An advisory panel appointed by the Trump administration’s vaccine-skeptic health secretary voted Friday to stop recommending all newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine in the United States.
The move to end a three-decade-old recommendation is the panel’s latest contentious decision to overturn long-standing medical advice since its overhaul by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has spent decades spreading anti-vaccine rhetoric.
US health authorities previously recommended universal vaccination against hepatitis B just after birth to prevent infections from mothers who unknowingly had the liver disease or had falsely tested negative.
The approach has virtually eradicated hepatitis B infections among young people in the United States.
After delaying the vote by a day, the panel eventually passed its new recommendation for “individual-based decision-making,” in consultation with a doctor, when children are born to mothers testing negatively for the disease.
The decision should “consider vaccine benefits, vaccine risks, and infection risks.”
It also recommends that babies who are not vaccinated at birth wait at least two months to get the initial dose.
The vote was 8-3.
Under Kennedy, ACIP is now composed largely of figures criticized by the scientific community for lack of expertise or their promotion of vaccine-skeptic theories.
Since 1991, US health officials have recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, as is done in countries like China and Australia and is recommended by the World Health Organization.
But several ACIP members have argued that Friday’s decision aligns the US vaccination schedule with those of other developed countries like France and Britain.
Medical experts say such a change is risky in the United States, pointing to shortcomings in maternal screening, with delays likely to cause a drop in vaccination rates in a country where access to health care can be complicated.
“This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children,” American Academy of Pediatrics President Susan J. Kressly said in a statement.
The repercussions of the ACIP’s vaccine recommendations are broad because federal guidelines often dictate whether vaccines are paid for by health insurance companies in the United States, where a vaccine can cost hundreds of dollars.
But the committee’s influence is waning amid withering criticism from the American scientific and medical community, with Democratic-led states announcing they will no longer follow its recommendations.
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