ACIP Votes to End Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendation for All Newborns

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has voted in favor of changing the recommendations for the hepatitis B vaccine, deciding that not all newborns should be required to receive the vaccine.

Politico reports that the panel voted by a margin of 8-3 to “end the blanket recommendation that all infants get vaccinated at birth, maintaining that guidance only for infants whose mothers test positive for the infection or have unknown status.” Mothers who test negative would be asked to “talk with their healthcare provider and decide themselves when to vaccinate their child,” according to the panel’s new recommendations.

CBS News also reported that the decision “came on the second day of [ACIP’s] December meeting, after confusion on Thursday led to the vote being delayed.” One of the newly appointed ACIP members, who is a “mathematician who has no medical training, strongly argued against the universal birth dose, falsely claiming that experts had ‘never tested (the vaccines) appropriately.’” Dr. Cody Meissner, the only member of ACIP to carry over after HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reconstituted the panel, criticized the efforts to change the recommendations, saying “no rational science [had] been presented” to justify a change.

Recommendations from the advisory committee “go to the CDC director for approval. Ultimately, decisions are left to the states, which tend to base their policies off the CDC's guidelines but can choose to set their own. ACIP's recommendations also carry weight with insurance companies: Most private insurers are required to cover the recommended vaccines. If the recommendation changes, what's covered by insurance may also change.”