"In an unprecedented change, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the number of vaccines recommended for all children on Monday. One of them is the hepatitis B vaccine, a three-dose series first given at birth that protects against a dangerous virus that relentlessly attacks the liver. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long questioned the safety and efficacy of the newborn dose, even linking an ingredient long used in the shot to autism without citing any evidence."
"But according to a memo released by the Department of Health and Human Services last Friday, 20 peer nations except Denmark and Finland recommend that all kids receive the hepatitis B vaccine, either at birth or later in life. In the U.S. alone, public health experts attribute more than 1,800 deaths to hepatitis B each year. "It's just really sad," says Dr. Samuel So, a surgeon specializing in hepatitis B at Stanford Medicine."
The CDC reduced the number of vaccines recommended for all children by removing the hepatitis B newborn dose. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has questioned the newborn dose’s safety and efficacy and linked a long-used vaccine ingredient to autism without evidence. Twenty peer nations, except Denmark and Finland, recommend universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth or later. Public health experts attribute more than 1,800 U.S. deaths annually to hepatitis B. Experts predict the change will decrease childhood vaccination rates. Ghana is urgently seeking vaccine vials; nearly one in ten Ghanaians has chronic hepatitis B and about 10,000 new infections occur each year.
Read at www.npr.org
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