NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - A group of vaccine advisers to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday voted to remove the broad recommendation that all newborns in the U.S. receive a hepatitis B vaccine, in one of the most sweeping changes to vaccine policy under Kennedy's leadership so far. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on which public health recommendations to adopt.
Here are some reactions to the decision:
HOUSE ENERGY & COMMERCE HEALTH SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER DIANA DEGETTE, IN A STATEMENT: “This administration’s anti-science agenda is going to get kids killed. The vote by members of ACIP to end the universal Hepatitis B vaccine birth dose recommendation for newborns is not supported by science and is incredibly reckless. Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have eroded Americans’ confidence in public health and diminished our capacity to protect the public, from hawking unproven treatments to ousting trusted medical experts across the federal government. Now, because of an ACIP stacked with vaccine conspiracy theorists, children will be more likely to get preventable diseases and die."
ACIP MEMBER RETSEF LEVI, PROFESSOR OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AT MIT, WHO VOTED YES: "If you're a baby that was born to a mother that was tested negative to hep B, you need to realize as a parent that your risk of infection throughout your early stage of life, and probably throughout most of your childhood, is extremely low... As a parent, we encourage you, in consultation with your physician, to think very carefully. Do you want to expose your child, your baby, to an intervention that could have some potential harms when the risk is so low?"
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS PRESIDENT DR. SUSAN KRESSLY: "“This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children. I want to reassure parents and clinicians that there is no new or concerning information about the hepatitis B vaccine that is prompting this change, nor has children’s risk of contracting hepatitis B changed. Instead, this is the result of a deliberate strategy to sow fear and distrust among families.”
DR. PAUL OFFIT, DIRECTOR OF THE VACCINE EDUCATION CENTER AT THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: "I think that this vote will condemn probably hundreds of children to a shorter life."
Offit said in 1991, there were 30,000 hepatitis B infections among children under age 10. Of those, 15,000 got it from their mothers. "The other 15,000 got it from relatively casual contact with one of the millions of people in this country who have chronic hepatitis B virus and don't know it. This virus is 50 to 100 times more contagious than AIDS, and I don't think they understand that."
SENATE HELP COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN BILL CASSIDY, REPUBLICAN OF LOUISIANA, ON X: "As a liver doctor who has treated patients with hepatitis B for decades, this change to the vaccine schedule is a mistake. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective. The birth dose is a recommendation, NOT a mandate. Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20. Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker. Acting CDC Director O’Neill should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence-based approach."
DORIT REISS, A VACCINE LAW EXPERT AT UC LAW SAN FRANCISCO: "The committee did not have good data, has no one with hepatitis B expertise among its members, and the actual experts recommended against this. Overturning a decision by actual experts with no change in data is inappropriate, and this will put babies at risk. The vote language has been changed multiple times and not announced in advance. The misleading information presented would confuse people. At least they left it as shared clinical decision making, so insurance will still cover it."
DR. CODY MEISSNER, COMMITTEE MEMBER AND PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS AT DARTMOUTH: "We have heard 'do no harm' is a moral imperative. We are doing harm by changing this wording. And I vote no."
JOSEPH HIBBELN, COMMITTEE MEMBER AND FORMER CHIEF OF SECTION ON NUTRITIONAL NEUROSCIENCES AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: "We have still not had any information or science presented or discussed with regard to this issue of before or after two months of age. This is unconscionable. How can we go forward when this is a specific issue that was supposed to be identified?"
DR. WILLIAM SCHAFFNER, PREVENTIVE MEDICINE AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER AND FORMER ACIP MEMBER: "I'm very disappointed. I think that if we look many years down the road, we will see that there are children who have acquired hepatitis B infection during the birth process and have subsequently developed active hepatitis and the consequences of cirrhosis and perhaps even liver cancer.
"They've turned back the clock to pre-1991. There's no science behind either of these recommendations. That's the painful part. Just there's profound misunderstanding on the part of many of the committee members of the science."
DR. FLOR MUNOZ, INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPECIALIST AT TEXAS CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL: Shared decision-making by parents and doctors “is already existing practice. There is no reason why this has to be a new policy, or that there would be a change in how physicians and parents make decisions on vaccines. All vaccines in the schedule are recommended vaccines. None is mandated.”
NOEL BREWER, FORMER ACIP MEMBER AND PROFESSOR IN PUBLIC HEALTH AT UNC: "ACIP continues to take away parents' choices and make it harder to protect their children through vaccination. The vote to eliminate universal hepatitis B vaccination will increase harm to children, increasing their risk of cancer and being a lifelong carrier of a deadly pathogen."
"We’ve gone from smart health policy by doctors who love and care for children to chaotic utterances by your nutty uncle."
(Reporting by Reuters health team staf)
