Instead of recommending hepatitis B vaccination for all newborns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now formally advises women who test negative for the virus to consult with health care providers about whether their babies should receive the first doses within 24 hours of birth.
The agency's vaccine advisory committee, whose members were appointed by Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this year after the dismissal of previous members. voted for recommendation this monthupending more than three decades of agency leadership. Acting CDC Director Jim O'Neill accepted the change Tuesday. is the final step toward making it agency policy.
“We are restoring the balance to informed consent for parents whose newborns are at low risk of contracting hepatitis B,” O'Neill said in a statement.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had recommended dose of vaccine at birth since 1991. Many public health experts criticized the advisory committee's decision: After the meeting, a chorus of doctors, political leaders and health officials urged O'Neill to ignore the proposed changes and support the CDC recommendations, but to no avail.
Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests waiting until at least infants are 2 months old to get their first hepatitis B vaccine if they did not receive a dose at birth. However, it still recommends that infants born to mothers who test positive for hepatitis B or whose infection status is unknown receive hepatitis B vaccine within the first day of life.
The agency is still considering the panel's secondary recommendation that parents should consult with health care providers about testing children for hepatitis B antibodies before they decide whether to receive a second dose of the vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is usually given to infants in a series of three doses.
The new policy is one of the clearest examples of how the CDC's recommendations diverge from widespread medical consensus. The advisory committee's discussion of hepatitis B vaccines was rife with misinformation and cherry-picked dataand he ignored decades of evidence that hepatitis B vaccines are safe and effective when given soon after birth.
Many public health experts say delaying hepatitis B vaccine until children are older could lead to a resurgence of infections and possibly increased deaths from liver disease or cancer. The number of cases of acute hepatitis B among children fell sharply after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began recommending a universal birth dose. 99% from 1990 to 2019. Hepatitis B can be passed from mother to baby during childbirth, and not all pregnant women are tested for it. There is no cure.
“Removing the guidelines for newborns makes it more likely that cases will start to rise again. It makes America worse,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, a liver doctor who has treated hepatitis B patients. said X this month. Cassidy is one of many medical professionals who have publicly asked O'Neill not to accept the advisory panel's recommendations.
Pediatricians are expected to continue to recommend that parents vaccinate their newborns against hepatitis B. The Department of Health and Human Services said the new recommendations will not affect insurance coverage for the shots. The vaccine will also continue to be offered to newborns through the Vaccines for Children program, which provides free vaccinations to uninsured and underinsured children.
The hepatitis B decision was the latest in a series of CDC policy changes that were not backed by science, prompting some public health experts to suggest the agency's recommendations could no longer be trusted.
After Kennedy gutted long-standing membership member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine panel (formally known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices), he replaced it in June with a group that largely expressed vaccine skepticism.
O'Neill, a former investment manager with no medical background, previously worked at the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush. He became acting director of the CDC in August after Kennedy abruptly fired previous director Susan Monares. Kennedy said Monares was fired for being untrustworthy, but Monares said Kennedy fired her for refusing to blindly approve the vaccine advisory panel's recommendations.
Last month the C.D.C. changed the web page who once stated unequivocally that vaccines do not cause autism, instead stating that studies have not ruled out a link. (Actually, decades of research I didn't find any association.)
In October O'Neill appealed to vaccine manufacturers develop separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines without evidence to support separation of the combination vaccine. And in September the CDC updated my manual tell pregnant women consider quitting acetaminophen is the active ingredient in Tylenol because of a possible link to autism in children. (The bulk of scientific literature to date I didn't find the exact link.)
After decades of relying on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), many states have begun to heed the recommendations newly formed public health alliances or professional medical societies such as the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP continues to recommend the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, followed by additional doses at 1 to 2 months and 6 to 18 months.
