The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met last week to vote on changes to CDC recommendations for the hepatitis B vaccine series for infants. Public Citizen notes that the committee “voted 8 to 3 to recommend replacing the long-standing practice of administering the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns with ‘individual-based decision-making.’”
ROBERT STEINBROOK; contact via communications director, [email protected]
Steinbrook is the Health Research Group Director at Public Citizen.
Steinbrook issued the following statement: “Delaying a birth dose of the safe and effective hepatitis B vaccine is senseless and will do real harm. Fewer infants will be vaccinated against a potentially deadly disease, more people will likely be infected, and some will develop chronic hepatitis B infection and life-threatening liver disease. For 35 years, vaccination at birth has protected millions of newborns against a preventable disease, and the hepatitis vaccine has now become a victim of its own success. Upending a public health success because of baseless doubts about vaccine safety is a tragedy in the making.”
Steinbrook told the Institute for Public Accuracy: The vote was “highly disappointing but not unexpected. The change had been telegraphed pretty clearly. The anticipation is that CDC will accept the recommendations, but they have not yet announced that. It could have been worse, in the sense that the vaccine will still be available for a birth dose and insurance coverage should be maintained.
“But all things being equal, there will be less uptake of the birth dose. That is a likely effect of changing the recommendation. Also, what got less attention was the separate ad hoc recommendation to use antibody levels to measure whether a full dose of three vaccines is needed. That change will potentially cause problems in terms of full vaccination, which is three doses. The full schedule of vaccination is three doses––that really hasn’t changed. That is going less noticed. There is no rationale for that change, but it will create more uncertainty among parents and clinicians.”