Illinois will conduct its own review of a federal vaccine advisory committee’s decision to no longer recommend that all babies get the hepatitis B vaccine when they’re born — a move that’s been blasted by the Chicago-based American Medical Association and other health experts.
More Top Picks Dyslexia Laws By State What Your School Must Provide
The federal government had long advised that babies be vaccinated against hepatitis B right after birth to prevent serious liver damage that can be caused by the infection. But the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided Friday to recommend that it be left up to parents and doctors whether to vaccinate infants right after birth if the infants’ mothers test negative for hepatitis B. Babies of mothers who test positive for hepatitis B or who aren’t tested would continue to receive the vaccine shortly after birth.
The federal committee also voted to suggest that when a family decides not to get the vaccine right after birth that the first dose of the vaccine be given at no earlier than 2 months old. The committee voted 8-3 in favor of the recommendations.
“The American people have benefited from the committee’s well-informed, rigorous discussion about the appropriateness of a vaccination in the first few hours of life,” said Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and CDC acting Director Jim O’Neill, in a news release.
But the change drew widespread condemnation from health leaders in Illinois and across the country.
“As a pediatrician and a parent, I am deeply concerned by this shift away from universal newborn vaccination, particularly in the absence of any new scientific evidence to support such a change,” said Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, in a statement Friday.
He said the Illinois Immunization Advisory Committee — made up of doctors and other experts — will meet Dec. 16 to review the federal committee’s hepatitis B vaccine recommendations. That state committee is tasked with making recommendations to director of the public health department.
Vohra said Friday that Illinois’ recommendations that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine remain unchanged. Earlier this year, the state health department adopted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s immunization schedules from early August — before the federal committee began to recommend controversial changes.
Illinois remains “committed to science-based public health policy” Vohra said, noting that Gov. JB Pritzker recently signed a bill into law formally establishing a process for the state to issue its own vaccine guidelines.
Illinois already broke with the federal government’s vaccine recommendations earlier this year, issuing its own recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines after the federal committee voted to no longer recommend the shots and instead leave it up to individuals whether to get them. In recent months, a number of states have been issuing their own recommendations for vaccines after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine skeptic — fired and replaced all the members of the federal vaccine advisory committee.
Other health experts also criticized the decision Friday to no longer recommend hepatitis B vaccines for all newborns.
The federal committee’s decision “is reckless and undermines decades of public confidence in a proven, lifesaving vaccine,” said Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an American Medical Association trustee in a statement Friday morning. “Today’s action is not based on scientific evidence, disregards data supporting the effectiveness of the Hepatitis B vaccine, and creates confusion for parents about how best to protect their newborns.”
Dr. David Nguyen, an infectious disease physician at Rush University System for Health, called the federal committee’s recommendations “frustrating and tragic.”
For most people, hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that lasts less than six months, and most adults make a full recovery, according to the Mayo Clinic. But newborns and babies infected with the virus during the first year of life have a 90% chance of developing chronic hepatitis B, and chronic hepatitis B can lead to liver damage, liver failure, liver cancer or death, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
About 25% of people with chronic hepatitis B die from the disease, according to the academy.
Though pregnant women are typically tested for hepatitis B as part of their prenatal care, babies may also sometimes catch the illness from other people, Nguyen said. Hepatitis B is typically spread through bodily fluids, but it’s highly infectious, he said.
“This is a very important vaccine for babies, to give as a last line of defense for an admittedly rare but very consequential, deadly, morbid disease,” Nguyen said. “I would not gamble my own child’s life and health. … I would want them to have that protection, that last line of defense.”
Federal committee members voted after listening to a presentation that concluded that vaccinating all newborns against hepatitis B has likely been only a “very small” contributor to the decline of hepatitis B in the U.S. over the last 40 years. Other measures including advanced blood screening, improved dialysis practices, and needle exchange programs have likely made more of a difference, according to the presentation. The federal committee also heard that about 0.5% of pregnancies in the U.S. are among women who test positive for hepatitis B.
More Top Picks Best Migraine Glasses For Light Sensitivity