On December 5th the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices (ACIP) as part of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), voted to overturn guidance set in 1991 that recommended all newborns receive the Hepatitis B vaccine. This 8-3 decision stipulates that newborns of mothers who test positive for it or whose status is unknown should still receive the vaccine at birth with recommending all others receive it no earlier than two months. This change could have potentially deadly consequences as knowing a child’s exposure risk is difficult, the disease is highly infectious and can survive on surfaces for up to seven days. Many don’t even know that they are infected and contagious, Hepatitis B can remain asymptomatic for years, the CDC estimates that half of the roughly 2.4 million people who have this chronic infection do not know.

Hepatitis B attacks the liver, causing cirrhosis and cancer, infants who become infected have a 90% chance of going on to develop the chronic form of the disease and a quarter of them will go on to die from the disease. Hepatitis B has no cure. Before the introduction of the vaccine 20,000 children were infected each year, whereas as of 2019 the CDC reported only 252 additional cases among individuals up to age 19. 

This decision comes after the Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the ACIP, back in June, replacing them with vaccine skeptics, as well as firing former CDC director Susan Monarez in late August after they clashed over vaccine policy. RFK Jr. is himself anti-vaccine, and frequently proliferates the myth that vaccines cause autism, directing the CDC to alter the vaccine safety page on their website.

After the reversal the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement that they will continue to recommend the three shot regimen against Hepatitis B for all infants beginning at birth. They, and 45 other organizations related to public health issued a statement regarding the alarming nature of this decision. Which was made in the face of the CDC reviewing the whole of the childhood vaccine schedule.

The fueling of vaccine skepticism by the federal government serves to sow confusion and doubt around well established and safe practices. This will undoubtedly put children at risk for easily preventable diseases.