A group of vaccine scientists on Tuesday released a report that staunchly supports giving the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns. The review, which included data from more than 400 studies and other reports, found that the vaccine has slashed infections in children by more than 95 percent.
“The totality of evidence—epidemiologic, clinical, and operational—supports maintaining universal hepatitis B vaccination within 24 hours of birth for all medically stable infants,” the authors concluded in a public comment about the report.
Hepatitis B is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis virus and spread through bodily fluids. Chronic infections can cause liver cancer, and the infection can be fatal.
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The release comes days ahead of a vote on whether to change the guidance on the hep B shot for newborns slated for later this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has informed CDC policy for years; earlier this year, the 17-person committee was fired and restocked with health secretary and noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s handpicked advisers, many of whom have also expressed doubts over well-established vaccines.
The vaccine panel is widely expected to vote to shift the timing of the vaccine from birth until later in childhood, but experts have said that the delay will endanger children. A separate preprint modeling study posted to medRxiv on November 25 found that if the vaccine were to be delayed by just two months, some 1,400 babies would become chronically infected with hepatitis B.
“Delaying the first dose would reduce protection for infants and increase the risk of avoidable [hep B] infections, undermining decades of progress in hepatitis B prevention and U.S. efforts to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat,” the report authors wrote in their public comment.