Vaccine Panel Shares Misleading Information on Hepatitis B Vaccine

Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted to no longer issue a blanket recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth. The committee had been reconstituted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Under the new guidance, parents of babies born to mothers who test negative for the virus will be advised to discuss vaccination with a doctor to decide “when or if” to give the vaccine. For those who opt to forgo a birth dose, the panel “suggested” waiting at least two months to vaccinate.

Numerous experts and medical groups slammed the decision. The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics called the new recommendation “irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance” that “will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children.”
 
Our SciCheck team, Jessica McDonald and Kate Yandell, monitored the committee's Dec. 4 and 5 meeting and wrote about several claims.

One committee member misleadingly suggested during discussions that the hepatitis B vaccine might cause multiple sclerosis. As Jessie and Kate wrote, it’s true that in the 1990s, case reports in France sparked concerns about the hepatitis B vaccine and MS. But the issue has now been studied more rigorously. The World Health Organization’s Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety has concluded that there is “no association” between the hepatitis B vaccine and MS.

In a presentation to the committee, a well-known anti-vaccine advocate implied the vaccines were not properly tested in placebo-controlled trials, echoing claims that rely on narrowly defining placebos. There have been more than half a dozen randomized, controlled trials on the safety of the hepatitis B vaccine birth dose, a Dec. 2 report from the Vaccine Integrity Project, an initiative of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, found.

For more on claims made at the meeting, see Jessie's and Kate's story: “Vaccine Panel, Voting to Change Hepatitis B Shot for Newborns, Shares Misleading Information.”

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

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• Panel de vacunación comparte información engañosa al votar cambios en la vacuna contra la hepatitis B para recién nacidos
  Trastocando directrices de décadas de antigüedad, el comité asesor de vacunas de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades votó a favor de dejar de emitir la recomendación general de que todos los recién nacidos reciban la vacuna contra la hepatitis B al nacer. A lo largo de la reunión, muchos panelistas hicieron afirmaciones engañosas sobre la vacuna.