A reversal of a decades-long program of childhood immunizations, including a recommendation to scrap hepatitis B shots for newborn babies, could come as early as this week in a vote by an advisory committee of allies convened by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Kirk Milhoan, the new chair of the federal advisory panel on immunization practices, said members would vote whether to push for the axing of the hepatitis B requirement during its two-day meeting ending Friday.
He said the committee would also be looking into whether the mandated schedule of shots during childhood had contributed to a rise in allergies and autoimmune disorders.
Milhoan, like many members of Kennedy’s handpicked panel, shares the health secretary’s distrust and disapproval of years of public health practices related to vaccinations. Last month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at Kennedy’s direction, altered its website to distance itself from decades of science proving that vaccines do not cause autism.
According to the Post, members will make a decision on Thursday over reversing the recommendation that newborns receive a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth.
Milhoan told the newspaper that the panel was instead weighing a delay in the first dose by an interval that is “still being finalized”, and that his colleagues postponed a vote at its September meeting because of disagreements.
During often testy discussions at that gathering, in which one member was caught on a hot mic calling another adviser “an idiot”, the panel enacted several other changes to its recommendations concerning existing vaccine policy. They included advice for people to speak with a doctor before taking a Covid-19 jab, and delaying the schedule for the combined measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox (MMRV) shots in children.
Any change to the hepatitis B schedule could have significant and far-reaching consequences. According to a study published in 2023 in the official journal of the US surgeon general, there was a 99% decline in reported cases of acute hepatitis B among children, adolescents and young adults between 1990 and 2019 as a direct result of infant immunization.
The CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics first recommended the shot for all newborns in 1991, after previously advising it only for at-risk babies.
The advisory panel can only make recommendations to the head of the CDC, acting director Jim O’Neill. The previous director, Susan Monarez, was ousted controversially by the Trump administration in August after the White House claimed she was “not aligned” with the president’s agenda.
Milhoan told the Post that the committee planned to begin public discussions on a push to review the childhood immunization schedule, as well as the “cumulative health effects” of the dozens of shots children receive.
“We’re looking at what may be causing some of the long-term changes we’re seeing in population data in children, specifically things such as asthma and eczema and other autoimmune diseases,” Milhoan said.
“What we’re trying to do is figure out if there are factors within vaccines.”
Specifically, the Post said, the panel wants to look into aluminum salts, an adjuvant in numerous routine vaccines designed to create a stronger immune response in those who receive them. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) acknowledges some negative effects of aluminum exposure but considers the risk “acceptable in view of the therapeutic benefits” of vaccines, its website states.
More generally, Kennedy’s efforts to remake the landscape of vaccines in the US since he was confirmed narrowly by the US Senate in February have run into a wall of criticism. At a combative appearance before the chamber’s finance committee in September he was accused of a “reckless disregard for science and the truth” by Democrats who demanded his resignation.
In Kentucky, public health officials said three infants who died this year from whooping cough were not vaccinated, while at least two unvaccinated children in Texas died from measles.
Medical professionals have been especially critical of Kennedy’s pushing of debunked theories of a link between vaccines and autism, and unproven claims that the use of Tylenol in pregnancy causes autism.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with its leadership and advisory committee on immunization practices appointed by Secretary Kennedy, is no longer a trustworthy source of health information,” William Matthew London, editor of the Center for Inquiry’s Quackwatch website, said in a statement.
“The only statement from Kennedy that I trust was one he delivered during a congressional hearing in May: ‘I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.’”
