RFK Jr. Panel Suggests a Big Change to Child Immunizations

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all US babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they're born, per the AP. If accepted, it would be the biggest change yet to the childhood immunization schedule under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., notes the Washington Post.

• For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. But Kennedy's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 8-3 to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, and in cases where the mom wasn't tested.
• For other babies, it would be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate. The committee voted to suggest that these parents delay the dose at least two months.

• The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jim O'Neill, will now decide whether to accept the committee's recommendation. In June, Kennedy fired the entire 17-member panel and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
• A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel, including dissenters on the panel. "We will see hepatitis B infections come back," said one of them, Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. "The vaccine is so effective, it does not make sense in my mind to change the immunization schedule."
• Those in the majority asserted that the risk of infection for most babies is very low and that earlier research that found the shots were safe for infants was inadequate.