CDC vaccine panel's hep B reversal leads parents astray
By Lisa Jarvis / Bloomberg Opinion
In a stunning decision that defies all expert advice and scientific evidence, the influential group that shapes U.S. vaccine policy will no longer recommend that all infants receive the hepatitis B vaccination shortly after birth.
It’s a dangerous change that will cause real harm, made by a panel — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — tasked with protecting public health. Equally alarming as the decision itself was the process by which it was made — a process that demonstrates how this committee, handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., could use its authority to undermine access to and confidence in other routine shots.
And while it had been signaled that the group would make the change, the vote left no doubt that Kennedy’s anti-vax agenda is now being actively implemented.
Amy Middleman, a pediatrician representing the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, told the panel it was the first time in her 21 years as a liaison to ACIP that a vote would put children in the U.S. at a greater risk of disease and death. “Data show the universal hepatitis B birth dose recommendation increases adherence to the vaccine,” she said. “Any policy that weakens that recommendation and allows children to fall through the cracks of an imperfect medical system will harm children.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-cdc-vaccine-panels-hep-b-reversal-leads-parents-astray/
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