A federal vaccine committee took a major step toward Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goal of remaking the childhood vaccine schedule on Friday, voting to end a decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B, a highly infectious virus that can cause severe liver damage.
The divisiveness and dysfunction of the committee in making the decision, however, raised questions about the reliability of the advisory process and left at least one critic “very concerned about the future” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, voted 8 to 3 that women who test negative for hepatitis B should consult with their health care provider and decide “when or if” their child will be vaccinated against the virus at birth. The committee did not change the recommendation that newborns of mothers known to be infected or whose status is unknown be immunized. The shift is not expected to affect insurance coverage of the shots.
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