Vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have taken action on newborn hepatitis B vaccination and have questioned the general vaccination schedule for children and the ingredients that make some vaccines more effective.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In a historic vote, vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stopped recommending that all children receive a dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. The vote was controversial. This is strongly opposed by much of the medical community. NPR's Pien Huang watched. Hello Pien.
PIEN HUAN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Okay, this is the CDC's vaccine advisory committee. What prompted them to change policy?
HUAN: So earlier this year, Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all the previous panel members and hand-picked his own, many of whom, like Kennedy, have long questioned the safety of vaccines that have long been in use. So the hepatitis B vaccine is one of the first vaccines they're looking at on the schedule, and the committee noted the concerns of some parents and also stated that other comparable countries are not introducing hepatitis B vaccines that early. Here in the US, they have been recommended for all healthy newborns for over 30 years, and this policy has been associated with significant reductions in liver disease. Since the 1990s, annual hepatitis B infections among infants and children have dropped by 99%.
KELLY: And yet they voted to stop all vaccinations?
HUAN: Stop recommending it to every child. They still recommend it for children whose mothers test positive for hepatitis B or whose status is unknown. But now mothers who test negative should discuss it with their doctor. Some participants who supported the change did so because of parental choice. Here's Retzef Levy, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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LEVY'S REPORT: The point of this is that parents should think carefully about whether they want to take the risk of giving their child another vaccine. And many of them may decide that they want to wait much longer than two months, maybe even years, and maybe even until adulthood.
HUAN: But a spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that this was always a recommendation, not a requirement, for vaccination. However, Levy was one of the 8 members who voted for the change. There were three members who opposed it. Pediatrician Cody Meisner of Dartmouth said it went against his doctor's oath to do no harm.
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CODY MEISNER: Thoughtful investigation is always commendable. But this question should not be confused with unfounded skepticism.
HUAN: Many medical workers also opposed the vote at the meeting.
KELLY: Well, I want to emphasize that this was an advisory committee vote. This is optional, so what happens now?
HUAN: Yes, so now the acting director of the CDC must decide whether to adopt this guidance as policy, a step that could take hours or weeks. We're not sure yet.
KELLY: Got it. Beyond the committee, outside of the CDC, how do the people you talk to react to this?
HUAN: Many in the medical and public health communities are very upset by the vote and concerned about its likely health impact. That is, despite this change, the hepatitis B vaccine should still be covered at no cost to any parent who chooses to get it for their child. But Dr. Su Wang, a New Jersey physician and hepatitis B advocate, says it would wreak havoc. Fewer children will be vaccinated.
SU WANG: Over the years, we'll see that really good decline that we saw with the decline in acute hepatitis B and chronic hepatitis B – we'll see it come back up, and we'll see an increase in liver cancer. And this is truly a travesty.
HUAN: Public health officials also see this as part of Secretary Kennedy's broader push to undermine vaccines and discourage people from getting them, even though the safety data hasn't changed. There are signs of this in some other topics as well.
KELLY: Other topics. Okay, give me one or two sentences about other topics.
HUAN: Yes, of course. So the panel heard from Aaron Seery, the lawyer suing HHS. He questions the safety of many common childhood vaccines and calls for an end to vaccination mandates. They also questioned the safety of aluminum-based additives in vaccines, which have been used for nearly 100 years.
KELLY: NPR's Pien Huang. Thank you, Pien.
JUAN: You're welcome.
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