An influential federal health panel newly stacked with vaccine skeptics voted Friday to do away with a decades-long recommendation that all infants be vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth.
The move is a part of a broader effort by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary and long-time vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to overhaul the nation’s immunization policies. Kennedy handpicked the panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The change is not expected to influence insurance coverage for hepatitis B vaccines, and it will not alter the message from public health officials in Vermont.
The state health department reiterated earlier this week that all newborns should be immunized against the highly contagious viral infection, which can cause fatal cirrhosis and liver cancer later in life. The status-quo guidance reflects widespread medical consensus, including longstanding recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
ACIP voted 8-3 that pregnant women who test negative for the virus should consult with their health care provider to decide “when or if” to vaccinate their child. It did not change the recommendation that infants born to mothers known to be infected or whose status is unknown be immunized.
Merideth Plumpton, vaccine manager for the Vermont Department of Health, said we have 30 years of real-world data about the hepatitis B vaccine.
“Hepatitis B is one of the safest and most effective vaccines that we have, and it's one of two vaccines that actually helps to prevent cancer,” she said.
She also emphasized that babies are uniquely vulnerable to hepatitis B — they’re much more likely to develop a chronic infection than people who become infected as adults or adolescents.
The federal panel received “no new data,” and “no new science” before its vote, according to Rebecca Bell, a pediatrician and the past president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. But she said the panel’s actions will still sow doubt.
“Hepatitis B is one of the safest and most effective vaccines that we have, and it's one of two vaccines that actually helps to prevent cancer."Merideth Plumpton, vaccine manager at Vermont Department of Health
Even if the underlying science hasn’t changed, the growing prevalence of vaccine skepticism makes parents second-guess immunizations.
“We are spending a lot more time having these conversations with families because what they’re hearing is that things have changed when in fact they haven’t,” she said.
ACIP panelists who favored the change argued that hepatitis B is primarily a sexually transmitted disease, and that immunization should be more narrowly targeted.
But Bell said the U.S. has already tried, in the 1980s, to tackle hepatitis B by just vaccinating people who were considered high-risk, including children whose mothers had tested positive. The virus can also spread through casual contact, and it wasn’t until the vaccine started being administered universally in 1991 to all newborns that rates of the disease began to plummet.
“By doing that, we have virtually eliminated hepatitis B infection in children in the U.S. Like, eliminated it. It’s remarkable,” she said.
The federal panel's vote requires approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's acting director.
