The Trump administration has rocked the medical community after an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, voted to end the recommendation of the hepatitis B vaccine shot for newborns at birth for the first time since 1991.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to end the 34-year-old recommendation 8 to 3 on Friday, affirming U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, a medical conspiracy theorist who has long pushed for the overhauling of childhood vaccines.
U.S. Senator Angela Alsobrooks, who called for Kennedy to resign over his dismantling of the country’s medical research apparatus, rebuked the CDC panel decision and again called on Kennedy to step down from office.
“Today is just the latest, and perhaps most dangerous, in a long string of actions by RFK Jr. intended to make Americans sicker. Make no mistake: the Secretary and his sycophants are risking children’s lives all to satisfy their own cockamamie conspiracy theories,” said Alsobrooks. “The federal government is supposed to improve American lives, not kill Americans.”
Hepatitis B is a highly infectious virus that leads to chronic liver disease for most infected children. According to The New York Times, the CDC has recommended since 1991 that doctors administer the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours of birth to infants whose mothers are known to be infected, and within 24 hours for all other newborns.
The panel’s Friday vote, which the CDC director must approve, recommended that mothers who test negative for the virus should instead consult with their health care provider and decide “when or if” their child will be vaccinated against the virus at birth.
The vote from the vaccine panel isn’t particularly surprising, given that Secretary Kennedy, who has no experience working in medicine, fired all 17 members of the panel in June. The Trump official replaced each person with someone who shared his skepticism about vaccines.
“I became the first Senator to call for RFK Jr. to resign or be fired BECAUSE I knew this is where we were headed,” said Alsobrooks, who is a member of the U.S. House Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
“I implore Americans to make health care decisions with their doctors and not listen to RFK Jr.’s handpicked conspiracy theorists who clearly have zero interest in science, medicine, or saving American lives,” said the U.S. senator.
Alsobrooks added, “This is the moment for my Republican colleagues to put aside their loyalty to this Administration and act on behalf of the American people. In the meantime, I will keep speaking out until this man is no longer our Secretary of Health and Human Services.”
