The vaccine advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet Dec. 4 and 5. On the agenda: the hepatitis B vaccine, the overall childhood vaccine schedule and vaccine ingredients. We’ll summarize what we’ve written about these topics and what the committee has said about them in recent meetings.The group, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, was reconstituted in June by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The committee has since departed from its normal evidence-based procedures and has made changes to its vaccine recommendations amid misleading claims about vaccine safety.
As we have written, the panel previously was scheduled to vote in September on a recommendation to delay the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine but tabled the vote at the last minute. The committee presented no clear rationale for why it was considering delaying the birth dose, and one member cited “trust,” and not safety, as the motivator. Since universal hepatitis B vaccination for infants was recommended in 1991, hepatitis B infections in children have fallen by 99%. Babies and young children who are infected with the hepatitis B virus are disproportionately likely to develop chronic infections, which can lead to liver failure and liver cancer.
