RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel to vote on hepatitis B shot for babies

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked vaccine committee is scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to vary a longstanding suggestion that each baby get vaccinated against hepatitis B inside 24 hours of birth. 

It’s unclear if the panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, will significantly delay or eliminate that so-called birth dose of the shot entirely. The group tabled a vote on the vaccine in September because some members called for a more robust discussion first.

But either change could have wide-ranging consequences: Some public health experts say that having fewer newborns vaccinated against the virus could risk a rise in chronic infections amongst children. 

Hepatitis B, which will be passed from mother to baby during childbirth, can result in liver disease and early death. There isn’t a cure. 

“Now we have a vaccine that is extremely effective at stopping an incurable disease. We should always take full advantage of that,” Neil Maniar, a public health professor at Northeastern University, told CNBC. 

The birth dose suggestion was introduced in 1991 and is credited with driving down infections in kids by 99% since then. Maniar called that a “remarkable success story that we run the danger of reversing” if the committee changes the suggestion. 

Decisions by the panel are usually not legally binding, because it is as much as states to mandate immunizations. But ACIP’s recommendations have significant implications for whether private insurance coverage and government assistance programs cover the vaccines for gratis for eligible children. 

The panel’s upcoming two-day meeting in Atlanta comes after Kennedy earlier this yr gutted the committee and appointed 12 latest members, including some well-known vaccine critics. Through the meeting in September, some advisors raised questions on whether the advantages of the shot outweigh potential safety risks. 

However the jab is “an incredibly protected vaccine with minimal risks,” Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases, said during a media briefing Tuesday. 

“I never once saw a fever actually related to hepatitis B vaccine,” said O’Leary, who practiced for eight years as a general pediatrician and worked in a newborn nursery. 

The AAP, which publishes its own vaccine schedule, still recommends the universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine because “it saves lives,” he added.

A brand new review, published Tuesday, of greater than 400 studies spanning 4 many years also found no evidence that delaying the universal hepatitis B vaccine birth dose improves safety or effectiveness. The review also found that the birth dose doesn’t cause any short- or long-term serious opposed events or deaths.

A 2024 CDC study showed that the present vaccination schedule has helped prevent greater than 6 million hepatitis B infections and nearly 1 million hepatitis B-related hospitalizations.

Merck and GSK manufacture the hepatitis B vaccines used starting at birth. Neither of the shots are significant revenue drivers for the businesses. 

Still, Merck throughout the panel’s September meeting pushed back on changing the suggestion. 

“The reconsideration of the newborn Hepatitis B vaccination on the established schedule poses a grave risk to the health of kids and to the general public, which may lead to a resurgence of preventable infectious diseases,” Dr. Richard Haupt, Merck’s head of worldwide medical and scientific affairs for vaccines and infectious diseases, said on the time.