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US vaccine advisers vote to end years-long recommendation to vaccinate babies against hepatitis B virus

The panel voted 8-3 to recommend the birth dose only for newborns at high risk, with others starting vaccination at two months, despite preventing over 6 million infections since 1991.

  • On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to end the universal newborn hepatitis B birth-dose recommendation, advising it only for infants with mothers testing positive or unknown status.
  • U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reconstituted the panel earlier this year, and committee members cited pressure from stakeholders and concerns about small newborn safety studies.
  • Public health data show childhood hepatitis B cases have plummeted since vaccination began, as the vaccine prevents serious liver damage and protects children and infants from liver failure and cancer.
  • Medical and doctors groups immediately voiced alarm about the committee's recommendation, warning more children could be infected, while Jim O'Neill, Acting CDC director, will decide later whether to accept it.
  • Critics say the panel's overhaul sidelined CDC scientists and elevated anti-vaccine voices, marking a return to a public health strategy abandoned more than three decades ago, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices .
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Lewiston Sun JournalLewiston Sun Journal
+18 Reposted by 18 other sources
Center

Panel votes to end recommendation that all newborns receive hepatitis B vaccine

Medical experts in Maine criticized the move and the Maine CDC said it would continue to recommend the vaccine be given at birth.

·Lewiston, United States
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Center

A U.S. federal panel voted this Friday to suspend the recommendation to immunize newborns against hepatitis B.

Lean Left

A US federal vaccine committee has voted to end the blanket recommendation that all babies receive a hepatitis B shot. That…

·Netherlands
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WJAR broke the news in on Thursday, December 4, 2025.
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