Healthcare

CDC Advisers Align Childhood Vaccination Schedule With Other High Income Nations, Media Melts Down Anyway

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Advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted 8-3 Friday to recommend that a mother without Hepatitis B consult with a physician and if she decides to vaccinate against the virus delay the first dose from the first day of life to two months.

The pivot away from a universal shot within hours of birth aligns the U.S. policy with the approach of 24 other high-income nations that recommend a first dose at two months old or three months old. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) had recommended the vaccine be administered within 24 hours of birth since 2018.

Credit: CDC

Though the American Hepatitis B vaccine schedule now resembles those of other Western nations, and despite the continued availability of the vaccine to all mothers, the legacy media characterized the decision as a reckless upheaval.

“CDC panel makes most sweeping revision to child vaccine schedule under RFK Jr.,” a Washington Post headline blares, with the article’s subheadline noting that the panel voted to remove a “long-standing recommendation.”

“RFK Jr.’s CDC panel: No more hepatitis B vaccine for some newborns,” an MSNOW headline reads, falsely implying the revocation of vaccines.

“In a step toward Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s goal of upending vaccine policy, the committee decided to delay the shot for babies of mothers who test negative for the virus, reversing longstanding guidance,” a New York Times subheading reads.

The committee also voted 6-4 to recommend testing after the first dose for Hepatitis B antibodies — which might indicate whether the first dose is protective — before administering second and third doses. The vote also called for this testing to be covered by insurance. The committee has long recommended universal screening for Hepatitis B in pregnant women.

Committee members sharply diverged over whether individual children’s health or public health should drive its policy on vaccinating infants for Hepatitis B, a disease most frequently acquired through intravenous drug use or sex and most commonly occurring in adults aged 40-59 years.

Since newborns began getting the Hepatitis B vaccine in 1991, we’ve seen a 99% reduction in pediatric infections.

Now, RFK Jr. and his conspiracy theorists want to take away all that progress.

Here in Massachusetts, I won’t let that happen. pic.twitter.com/XahJi7UDVv

— Maura Healey (@maura_healey) December 5, 2025

All of the committee members agreed that the committee lacks key data on the risks and benefits. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not require randomized placebo-controlled clinical trials of the two Hepatitis B vaccines that it approved for the first day of life in the 1980s, according to FDA Acting Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Tracy Beth Hoeg.

“The data that we used to approve the Hepatitis B vaccines … were based on studies that had a very short-term follow-up and no control group,” said Hoeg. “We would never approve a vaccine with data like those today. … We are working with very low-level evidence here and we have very limited confidence when we say these vaccines are safe.”

Hoeg identified anaphylaxis and fever as rare side effects.

Similarly, committee members who voted against the change bemoaned the lack of data on whether breakthrough infections can occur after just one dose of vaccine. Some committee members and liaisons to the committee from medical societies lambasted the lack of committee presentations on safety data.

“There is no evidence of harm. People talk about a blood brain barrier, and yes it’s different in infants than it is in older children and adults, but what does that have to do with reactions to the vaccine?” said Tufts Medical Center Chief of Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases Cody Meissner, who voted “no” on the changes, in apparent reference to concerns raised by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that vaccines or the Tylenol used to treat reactogenicity to vaccines precipitate autism.

“You can always find something to worry about if you look hard enough,” he added.

Kennedy fired every member of the ACIP in June, citing the slow turnover rate of its members and a history of the panel having ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

The U.S. began recommending universal Hepatitis B vaccination within the first two months of life in 1991 following a 25-year surge in Hepatitis B transmission due to blood-borne exposures in high risk groups and because public health officials struggled to contain outbreaks in those adults, according to a presentation Thursday by Vicky Pebsworth, a member of the committee and a public health official with the National Vaccine Information Center.

Pebsworth emphasized that the charter of the committee calls for its recommendations to be periodically reviewed.

Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, a liaison to the committee, decried the committee as “antiscience” and rejected the committee’s focus on individualized medicine.

“Your role is population health, not the individual,” he said addressing the committee.

Some committee members and liaisons from medical societies argued the U.S. cannot adopt the policies of countries with universal health benefits provided by the government and expect the same results.

“We can’t vaccinate our way out of an imperfect health care system,” Hoeg retorted.

Approximately 70% of chronic infections occur in immigrants to the U.S., according to CDC, which birth doses in American hospitals could not penetrate.

The change comes amid a new focus at HHS on individual choice, consent and safety in vaccine policy.

In a Friday email to staff, FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad said the agency will not lower safety standards for vaccines based on benefits conferred to third parties, focusing instead on risks and benefits to the individual patient, among other changes.