Another controversial decision in the US: The public health authority abandons the recommendation for vaccination against hepatitis B at birth, a major victory for Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The CDC's advisory committee abandons the recommendation to vaccinate children at birth against hepatitis B. It is an important victory for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccination skeptic, and a decision that, according to disease experts, will reverse decades of progress achieved in the field of public health, notes News.ro.

The committee voted to recommend maintaining the dose at birth only for infants whose mothers tested positive for the virus, replacing the universal recommendation in 1991 that protected all children from infection with the hepatitis B virus, which can lead to serious liver disease.

For infants whose mothers test negative, the committee recommended that parents, in consultation with a health care provider, decide if or when their child will begin the vaccine series.

According to the previous recommendation, which has now been removed, the dose given at birth was followed by two more vaccines, at 1-2 months and then between 6 and 18 months.

Now, the commission recommended parents to administer the first dose no earlier than two months.

Public health experts criticized the move, saying the move to shared clinical decision-making would create barriers to vaccine use when parents already have control over their children's care.

The committee advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on public health recommendations to be adopted. The recommendations affect US health insurance coverage and play a key role in helping doctors choose the right vaccines for patients.

Kennedy, who founded the anti-vaccination group Children's Health Defense, fired the previous 17 independent experts in June and replaced them with a group that largely supports his views.

During the two-day meeting, two members of the CDC's advisory committee vehemently opposed the change, saying there was no data to support it and decades of information on the vaccine's safety and effectiveness. But many members of the committee, a group that no longer includes any immunologists, argued there was no data to show the vaccine was safe and said the US was not keeping pace with similar countries.

The World Health Organization recommends that all babies receive the hepatitis B vaccine as soon as possible after birth, followed by two or three booster doses at least four weeks apart. The WHO also says that 95% of newborns who become infected with the hepatitis B virus will develop chronic hepatitis.

The CDC advisory committee's controversial decision comes after the same vaccine advisory panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in September abandoned its policy of broad support for the COVID-19 vaccine and recommended that vaccines be made available to all ages but based on a clinical decision shared with a physician.