After a delay and an unusually contentious meeting, a federal vaccine advisory panel was expected to vote on Friday whether to change the longstanding recommendation that all newborns be immunized against hepatitis B.
The first day of the meeting of the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) on Thursday was marked by heated debate over restricting access to the hepatitis B vaccine for infants and a decision to defer the vote by a day to give members more time to review the wording. 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.
The 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. “OK, got it.”
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 by the Trump administration in August after the White House claimed she was “not aligned” with the president’s agenda.
Earlier this year, Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of the advisory committee. He has replaced them with his own appointees, including several vaccine skeptics who align with Kennedy’s desire to overhaul – and possibly, in some cases, scrap – longstanding vaccination recommendations.
The panel’s membership changed again this week, when the health department announced that the committee’s most recent chair, Dr Martin Kulldorff, would depart for an official role within the agency. He was replaced by Dr Kirk Milhoan, a cardiologist who has been critical of the Covid vaccine.
Melody Schreiber contributed reporting
