The Northeast Public Health Collaborative and the West Coast Health Alliance, which formed with other blue states in response to Kennedy’s vaccine policy overhaul earlier this year, plan to disregard the latest recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP.
Hepatitis B is a serious, incurable infection that can cause liver damage and liver cancer. It can be passed from mother to child during delivery, and without vaccination, about 90 percent of infants infected at birth develop chronic hepatitis B infection. Of those with chronic infection, 25 percent will die prematurely from the disease.
Since 1991, ACIP and the American Academy of Pediatrics have recommended a universal dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. The sooner a newborn receives the vaccine, the greater the chance of preventing long-term infection. The dose, given at birth, is credited with dramatically reducing infection rates in children. Yet last week, Kennedy’s newly formed ACIP, which includes many vaccine skeptics, overturned 30 years of precedent. In June, Kennedy announced a “clean sweep” of ACIP, removing all of its previous 17 experts and replacing them with new members of his choosing.
During a chaotic two-day meeting filled with misinformation, the committee voted to recommend hepatitis B vaccine at birth only for babies born to pregnant people who test positive for the virus or whose status is unknown. For those whose hepatitis B status is negative, the panel recommended “individual-based decision making” — meaning parents should talk to their doctors about vaccination first. If the baby does not receive the first dose at birth, the panel suggests delaying the first dose until the baby is at least two months old.
Medical experts have condemned the decision, saying that screening across the US is incomplete and does not catch all infections. Half of the people who have the disease do not know they are infected.
“The United States went through several iterations of recommendations for vaccination against hepatitis B that were all risk-based. We tried to screen mothers, we tried to vaccinate only babies born to mothers living with hepatitis B, and they all failed. The universal birth dose was the ultimate success and that’s why we’ve seen a 99 percent decline in childhood hepatitis B cases since it was implemented,” said John F., director of prevention policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation. Michaela Jackson says.
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