Key US panel to vote on changing infant hepatitis B vaccine recommendation

Key Highlights

• The panel, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to use vaccines, had twice before postponed the vote. The shot is currently recommended for all infants within 24 hours of birth to prevent infection of hepatitis B, which can cause serious liver damage.
• It has been given to 1.4 billion people for more than three decades. CDC advisers delay vote on restricting infant hepatitis B vaccinations in tense meetingRead moreThe meeting in Atlanta offered no new evidence of the harms caused by the vaccine.
• The advisory panel, hand-picked by Donald Trump’s controversial health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, includes longtime anti-vaccine advocates. Kennedy, himself a prominent anti-vaccine activist, has long pushed for delaying the shot.
• Experts say any change to the current hepatitis B vaccination recommended schedule could have significant and far-reaching consequences for childhood health in the US. In one pointed exchange on Thursday, Joseph Hibbeln, an ACIP member and psychiatrist and neuroscientist, asked: “Is there any specific evidence of harm of giving this vaccination before 30 days?
• Or is this speculation?”“There is limited evidence about the long-term risk,” said Mark Blaxill, an author who has argued that vaccines cause autism and other conditions, and who was recently named senior adviser at the CDC.“So this was speculation and limited evidence,” Hibbeln replied.