Watch live: RFK’s Disease Control and Prevention Committee expected to vote on hepatitis B vaccine for newborns after delay

A federal vaccine advisory committee voted Thursday to postpone a decision on whether newborns should get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they are born.

The second day of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meeting is expected to begin on Friday, December 5, at 9 a.m. EST. Watch the live stream in the video player above.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which met in Atlanta, voted to postpone the decision until Friday after committee members expressed confusion over the language of the vote — and some expressed concern about taking such a step.

He watches: RFK Jr.’s CDC panel. Vote on hepatitis B vaccines for newborns postponed

For decades, the government has advised that all children be vaccinated against liver infection immediately after birth. These shots are widely viewed as a public health success in preventing thousands of diseases.

But a panel by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering whether to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers have tested positive, a return to a public health strategy that was abandoned more than three decades ago. For other children, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide whether the birth dose is appropriate.

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A working group was commissioned in September to evaluate whether a birth dose is necessary when mothers test negative for hepatitis B, committee member Vicki Pebsworth said.

“We need to address stakeholder and parent dissatisfaction” with the current recommendation, she said.

The committee makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use already approved vaccines. CDC directors have almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, to which doctors have broadly responded and directed vaccination programs. But the agency currently does not have a director, leaving acting director Jim O’Neill to make the decision.

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Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replaced it with a group that included many anti-vaccine voices.

The committee made several decisions that angered major medical groups.

At a meeting in June, the committee recommended removing a preservative called thimerosal from flu vaccine doses even though some members acknowledged there was no evidence it caused harm.

In September, it recommended new restrictions on combination doses that protect against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella. The committee also took the unprecedented step of not recommending coronavirus vaccinations, even for high-risk populations such as the elderly, and instead making it a matter of personal choice.

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Several groups of doctors said the changes were not based on good evidence, and advised doctors and patients to follow guidelines that were previously in place.

They renewed some of those criticisms. Dr. Jason M. Goldman, President of the American College of Physicians, commented during the meeting, describing it as “political theater” and added, “You are relying on the fears of individuals who do not want the vaccine.”

Some panelists argued that safety studies in the past have been limited and that additional, larger studies could reveal a problem with birth dose. But two other members of the panel — Dr. Joseph Hiblin and Dr. Cody Misner — saw no documented evidence of harm from birth doses and wondered whether the concern behind the discussion was just “speculation,” Hiblin said.

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Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that lasts in most people for less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-term problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer, and scarring called cirrhosis.

In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles while injecting drugs.

But it can also be transmitted from an infected mother to the child. Up to 90% of children who get hepatitis B develop chronic infection, which means their immune systems never completely get rid of the virus.

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In 1991, the committee recommended that a first dose of hepatitis B vaccine be given at birth. Over about 30 years, cases among children fell from about 18,000 cases per year to about 2,200.

But members of the Kennedy Committee expressed discomfort with vaccinating all newborns.

Cynthia Nevison, a researcher in the field of autism and the environment, spoke at the meeting. Nevison has written opinion pieces published by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy organization that Kennedy previously led. She also co-authored a 2021 article in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders that was retracted after concerns were raised about the paper’s methodology and about undisclosed ties between the authors and anti-vaccine groups.

Another presenter was Mark Blaxill, co-author of the retracted paper, who spoke about the safety of vaccines.

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In the past, committee meetings have relied on presentations by CDC scientists involved in tracking vaccine-preventable diseases and evaluating the safety of vaccines. The agenda for this meeting did not include any scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but instead included a lengthy public broadcast of anti-vaccine theories that most scientists considered discredited.

Kennedy is a lawyer by training. Aaron Seery, an attorney who worked with Kennedy on vaccine issues, was listed as a presenter Friday on the topic of the immunization schedule for American children.

US Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican doctor from Louisiana, posted on social media on Thursday: “ACIP has been completely discredited. They do not protect children.”

Current guidelines recommend a dose within 24 hours of birth for all medically stable infants who weigh at least 4.4 lb (2 kg), with follow-up doses to be given at approximately 1 month and 6 months. The committee is expected to vote on language stating that when a family decides not to get the birth dose, the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.