Cassidy tells CDC not to adopt hepatitis b vaccine change

 Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Friday publicly called for the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reject a vaccine advisory panel’s recommendation to no longer administer doses of the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns.

Cassidy’s plea came soon after the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8-3 in favor of a new recommendation that hepatitis B vaccination for newborns be left to “individual-based decision-making” among parents and their health care providers, something which members of panel noted already occurs.

The vote states “it is suggested” that a hepatitis B vaccine dose be administered “no earlier than 2 months of age.”

Cassidy spoke out forcefully against changes to hepatitis B guidance, the preventable liver disease being a close issue for the longtime physician.

“As a liver doctor who has treated patients with hepatitis B for decades, this change to the vaccine schedule is a mistake. The hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective. The birth dose is a recommendation, NOT a mandate,” he wrote on social platform X.

“Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B. Now, it’s fewer than 20. Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker,” he added. “Acting CDC Director [Jim] O’Neill should not sign these new recommendations and instead retain the current, evidence-based approach.”

The senator from Louisiana, chair of the Senate Health Committee, was the deciding vote in confirming Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who fired and remade the ACIP four months after he was confirmed, appointing known vaccine critics and skeptics to the influential committee.

The CDC director is not required to adopt the ACIP’s recommendations, though historically it almost always accepts its vote. Former CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired earlier this year for what she alleges was her refusal to promise Kennedy she would accept any recommendation that came from the committee.

Modeling released by the organization HepVu this week estimated that delaying hepatitis B vaccinations to 2 months of age would lead to 238 additional preventable infections among children and an added $21.6 million in health care costs.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/cassidy-urges-cdc-director-reject-163734835.html