Emergency Meidas Health: AAP President Dr. Kressly Pushes Back on Hepatitis B Vaccine ChangesExperts warn that proposed changes to newborn vaccination guidelines would reverse decades of progress and put America’s children at risk in a new episode of Meidas HealthHi Meidas Mighty, Normally, this is when we would be posting our mid-day recap of the news, but one story in particular has caused such alarm that we wanted to make sure you and the public receive this urgent information. Don’t worry: Ron Filipkowski’s daily news bulletin will be published later today as always, so stay tuned! In this emergency episode of Meidas Health, host Dr. Vin Gupta sat down with Dr. Susan Kressly, MD, FAAP, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to address a public health crisis unfolding in real time: an RFK Jr.-stacked federal advisory panel’s recommendation to scale back universal hepatitis B vaccination for newborns. The conversation, recorded soon after the announcement, made clear that the consequences of this decision, if implemented, would be immediate, dangerous, and entirely preventable. To support initiatives like Meidas Health, consider joining as a paid subscriber now. Dr. Gupta opened the episode by acknowledging the headlines now breaking across the country. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), an influential body that advises the CDC director, voted on proposed changes to long-standing hepatitis B prevention guidelines. The shift would replace the universal at-birth vaccine recommendation with a “test-and-immunize” strategy tied to screening pregnant mothers for the virus. For public health experts, pediatricians, and advocates for children, the alarm bells could not be louder. Dr. Kressly, who has practiced pediatrics throughout the evolution of hepatitis B prevention policy, was unequivocal: the proposed changes are not grounded in science, ignore decades of evidence, and would return the United States to a time when tens of thousands of infants contracted a virus that can cause chronic liver disease, liver failure, and cancer. “Hepatitis B has been a problem in this country,” Dr. Kressly explained, noting that the virus is far more contagious than HIV and can be transmitted through contact with microscopic traces of infected bodily fluid lingering on surfaces. “When young infants and children get hepatitis B, they can go on to have chronic hepatitis. That’s chronic liver disease… liver failure… even liver cancer.” For years, the United States attempted a risk-based approach to prevention, vaccinating only infants considered high-risk. The results were catastrophic. Many adults carrying hepatitis B do not know they are infected. Others may test negative during early pregnancy, then become infected later. Test results get lost. People slip through cracks. And infants, whose immune systems are at their most vulnerable, paid the price. “When we tried risk-based strategies, it did not capture everyone accurately,” Dr. Kressly said. Universal vaccination at birth changed everything. “When you do the right thing for everyone, you protect those most vulnerable.” A single dose given in the hospital before a newborn even goes home transformed hepatitis B from a widespread threat into a rare event. But ACIP’s newly proposed reversal risks undoing that progress without offering any evidence to support the change. Dr. Kressly was blunt: “There is no data and no science and no reason behind any of the hepatitis B recommendations they made today.” Parents, she emphasized, would be left believing their babies were protected when they were not. “You’ve left your child vulnerable at their most vulnerable time in life,” she said, noting that no family can realistically test every visitor, caregiver, relative, or neighbor for hepatitis B before they touch a newborn. The concern extends beyond hepatitis B itself. Dr. Kressly warned that the changes appear to be part of a broader political effort to erode confidence in vaccines, an effort that could open the door to larger, more dangerous dismantling of public health infrastructure. “They are taking something that is protecting children and removing the protection,” she said. “Every time you sow doubt… you are putting children at risk.” Perhaps most troubling: according to Dr. Kressly, no new evidence exists, none, that would justify altering the at-birth recommendation. “There is no new medical information or research study that calls into question the safety of that birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine,” she confirmed. “This was completely without any reason, any fact, anything behind it.” Both Dr. Kressly and Dr. Gupta stressed that this moment calls for clarity and leadership. The American Academy of Pediatrics, she said, will continue issuing evidence-based guidance and serving as the authoritative voice for children’s health, even if ACIP’s credibility has been undermined. “We have now gotten to a place where the recommendations from ACIP should not be trusted by anyone,” she said. “The American Academy of Pediatrics and my colleagues and I are standing up to be that confident voice.” The path forward requires action, not just from pediatricians, but from the public. “We all, as citizens of this country, need to push back against our legislators and policymakers,” Dr. Kressly urged. “History will judge them accountable for harms that are done because of the erosion of the confidence in vaccines.” As the episode concluded, Dr. Gupta thanked Dr. Kressly for her unwavering leadership. But the message to listeners was unmistakable: this fight is far from over. With public health experts sidelined and science ignored, protecting America’s children now depends on speaking out, demanding accountability, and refusing to let political agendas dictate medical facts. For parents seeking evidence-based guidance, Dr. Kressly urged them to visit HealthyChildren.org, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ trusted resource. When our government fails us, Meidas Health is here to fill in the gaps and provide truthful information to fight back against these senseless attacks on facts and science. Thank you again for supporting our Meidas Health initiative. Remember to like this post, share it, and subscribe if you are able. Let’s keep spreading the word. |
JUST A FEW COMMENTS:
Need to develop a vaccine against the MAGA virus.
Senator Cassidy is a phony
https://share.google/YpE7IFg2ln2yUAjyH
Anyone who listens to worm brain is an idiot!
RFKJr. is single-handedly wiping out decades' worth of hard, informed work by actual medical experts. He needs to be stopped -- impeach him next!
and give him Hep B
Given his habits and lifestyle, surely he must have it (along with syphilis and a host of other diseases)?
No changes to Hep B Vaccine!
RFK, Jr is unfit and a quack.
I think this is murder by giving false info
Yes, and why aren't the "Right-to-Lifers" complaining about this dimwit who is actually MURDERING millions of people???????????????????
Those right to life’s phonies want any baby to be born only to not offer any help after the birth so they either die due to problems discovered during pregnancy or they grow up with only one parent usually in poverty and in today’s world will not have food or shelter so will not survive. So much hate and so many lies….
You summed it up perfectly. Also, they'd rather the mother die if it's a "choice" between her or the baby living due to complications for BOTH. They don't care about the mother, only about the baby. Also, suppose she has other children?????? Guess they don't count.
Sadly if the baby is not white, blue eyed and blond they won’t care about it…And they could care less if there are other kids…
RFK is indeed a quack. DO NOT listen the US Government’s recommendation’s for your baby. discuss with your actual medical professional. You know, the one that went to medical school and has an actual degree or two in medicine. Stay safe!
That sounds absolutely horrifying, do not listen to your government. My God, this is where we are.
No kidding. Since when does a law degree somehow equate to a medical degree. They aren’t the same! Admittedly RFK Jr. may know his stuff about environmental stuff. He should. It’s been an interesting of his for years. But environmental waste does not always equate to leukemia, autism or other medical shortfall.
I swear his dad and uncle are both rolling over in their graves astounded that one of their own somehow ended up with the short stick.
Yes, and a quack of a president appointed him.
Personal anecdote: My father died from liver cancer 40 years ago. Even then his oncologist told him that at some point he had had hepatitis, even if unbeknownst to him. 40 YEARS AGO! In retrospect he recalled having once been notified that a unit of blood to which he had contributed (one of 2 donors) had tested positive for hepatitis. This progression has been long known, though the advantage of a vaccine wasn't yet available. These people are dangerously, immorally misguided, right from the top. For shame!
As I said yesterday, from this point on, I will blame Congress for every illness, abuse, and death caused by this illegitimate, inept, and corrupt regime. They could have stopped this BS months ago, but have instead chosen to protect a pedophilic criminal and his enablers.
What a coincidence that the arrest almost 5 years later of the January 5, 2021 pipe bomber was released as Trump blamed Hegseth who blamed USN Admiral Bradley for ordering the killings without due process of two humans clinging to a shipwrecked boat.
“18.3.2.1 Clearly Illegal Orders to Commit Law of War Violations. The requirement to refuse to comply with orders to commit law of war violations applies to orders to perform conduct that is clearly illegal or orders that the subordinate knows, in fact, are illegal.
For example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would be clearly illegal.”
Source: US Department of Defense Law of War Manual Updated July 2023: Article XVIII – Implementation and Enforcement of the Law of War, Chapter 18.3 Duties Of Individual Members Of The Armed Forces, Section 18.3.2.1 (p. 1088) https://ogc.osd.mil/Portals/99/Law%20of%20War%202023/DOD-LAW-OF-WAR-MANUAL-JUNE-2015-UPDATED-JULY%202023.pdf?ver=Qbxamfouw4znu1I7DVMcsw%3d%3d
We are without a government. We are on our own now and it feels rudderless.
“We all, as citizens of this country, need to push back against our legislators and policymakers,” Dr. Kressly urged.
HOW??????
These government crooks/imbeciles are deaf, dumb, and blind. It's no help that “History will judge them accountable for harms that are done because of the erosion of confidence in vaccines.” History will judge John Roberts for ignoring the Constitution, but that also isn't much help. Congress is full of cowards who aren't interested in hearing from their so-called constituents. (Their real constituents are the ultrawealthy.)
The idea behind this and most of the MAGA(t) theology is to weaken the American public to the point where they cannot stand up and defend or protect themselves. Kennedy has endlessly made statements that would allow another pandemic if (when) it occurs, made stupid comments regarding Tylenol, promoted sham medications that only an idiot like dr. Phil or dr. oz would try to sell on their tv shows and websites.
So CVS won’t carry HIV vaccines or HIV preventable products. I’ll never go back. They’ll go the way of dead Target and Deader Home Depot.
If MAGAT’s don’t want to vaccinate against childhood diseases let them. But then, they should be going to vaccine free schools and the rest of us are going to vaccination schools. I don’t want to shun kids particularly…I mean it’s not their fault their parents have made stupid choices for them. But many kids have medically fragile parents who simply can’t risk getting sick. It’s not measles…it’s Covid or whatever new disease is coming our way with the idiots in charge.
#1
CDC advisers vote to overturn decades-long policy on hepatitis B vaccine for infants
Updated December 05, 2025
Pien HuangRob SteinCarmel Wroth
Members of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) are seen during a meeting at CDC headquarters on December 4, 2025 in Atlanta, Ga. (Getty Images)
In a historic vote, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisers recommended narrowing the agency's hepatitis B immunization guidance for newborns.
The result, if approved by the CDC's acting director, will be a rollback of a universal recommendation to start hepatitis B immunization at birth, a standard practice in the U.S. for more than 30 years that has been credited with dramatically lowering liver diseases caused by the virus.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted 8-3 to recommend hepatitis B at birth only for infants born to women who test positive for the virus that attacks the liver. Women whose hepatitis B status is negative or unknown should talk with their doctors about vaccination, the recommendation says.
The changes were made over the strong objections of liaisons from the medical community, who say the decades-long universal birth dose policy has dramatically reduced cases of hepatitis B in U.S. children.
"Our question is why? Why is there pressure today to change something that has been working, due to safety concerns that may be more theoretical than real?" asked Dr. Grant Paulsen during Thursday's meeting. He was representing the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
There was a second vote regarding the number of shots babies get. Full immunization of infants involves three shots: usually one given at birth, a second shot one to three months later and a third at six to 15 months of age.
The panel voted 6-4, with one member abstaining, to recommend testing children's antibody levels after each hepatitis B shot to determine whether additional shots are needed. The result may be that some children get one or two shots instead of the standard three shots.
Dr. Adam Langer, a CDC official in charge of the agency's center that includes hepatitis prevention, said during the panel's discussion that clinical studies of approved hepatitis B vaccines tested a three-shot regimen. Stopping at one or two shots based on antibody testing would be making an assumption about efficacy that isn't supported by existing data, he said.
Sharply diverging views among members
The split vote on removing the recommendation for the universal vaccine reflects disagreement among the members. Several members who served on a subgroup that has been reviewing the topic led the votes in favor of the change.
The committee voting this week was hand selected by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned many vaccines. Several of the voting members themselves have a history of questioning the safety of long-used vaccines.
Retsef Levi, a voting member and professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, heralded the move as "a fundamental change in the approach to this vaccine," which would encourage parents to "carefully think about whether they want to take the risk of giving another vaccine to their child." Levi said parents may want to delay the vaccine for years. "That's going to be up to them and their physicians," he said.
A handful of members raised concerns over the lack of evidence supporting the change and concerns it will put children at risk.
#2
"We know vaccines are safe," said Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and the only current member who has served on the committee in previous years. "The hepatitis B vaccine recommendation is very well established. We know it is safe, and we know it is very effective, and to make the changes that are being proposed, we will see more children and adolescents and adults infected with hepatitis B."
Meissner added that he saw clear evidence of the benefits of the universal hepatitis B birth dose, but not the harms. When he registered his "no" vote, he stated, "Do no harm is a moral imperative. We are doing harm by changing this wording."
The previous recommendation to vaccinate all healthy newborns against hepatitis B was designed to make sure no at-risk infant falls through the cracks. Hepatitis B can be transmitted from mothers to infants during childbirth, but can also be spread through contact with an infected person's body fluids including saliva and blood.
Immunization in infancy confers lifelong protection against the hepatitis B virus, which can cause serious, potentially fatal health problems including liver cancer and cirrhosis. It is the cornerstone of a decades-long strategy to eliminate hepatitis B in the U.S.
Questioning vaccines
Friday's votes came after a previous attempt to change the universal vaccination recommendation failed at an ACIP meeting in September. That meeting descended into chaos, forcing the committee to postpone until this week's meeting.
During this week's discussion, the committee's vice chair, Robert Malone, framed the debate as a "diversity of opinion regarding the existence of evidence of harm," and said questions about harms were "largely unresolved" due to a lack of data.
Representatives from medical groups attending the meeting strongly disputed this characterization. "How can this committee justify removing a well established, successful and safe prevention strategy that is going to protect the most vulnerable infants, when the proper measures to identify those infants who are at risk are not in place?" asked Dr. Flor Munoz, a liaison from the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
The hepatitis B decision marks the most significant change in federal vaccine policy since Health Secretary Kennedy, a long-time vaccine critic, launched an effort to overhaul how Americans are vaccinated against infectious diseases. Kennedy's health agencies have already narrowed access to the COVID-19 vaccines, recommended young babies get vaccinated against chicken pox separately and changed the CDC's stance on a link between vaccines and autism.
The CDC is now scrutinizing the entire childhood vaccine schedule, which for decades has protected children against dangerous diseases, including measles, mumps, tetanus and polio.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, former CDC director, said that over the past few months, she has observed a systematic undermining of the nation's vaccine program.
"This meeting was another one of those chisels in the infrastructure that we rely on to keep our children, ourselves and our communities safe," Walensky said at a press briefing Thursday.
Those arguing for the changed recommendation question the safety of giving the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns, and have suggested that it could be linked with health problems and autoimmune diseases later on — a claim that is not supported by the cumulative evidence.
The ACIP subgroup which reviewed the hepatitis B policy was led by voting member Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse and board member of the National Vaccine Information Center, an advocacy group that questions vaccine safety.
"There was pressure coming from stakeholder groups wanting the policy to be revisited," she said.
A debate about preventing transmission
Some ACIP members argued that universal vaccination at birth is unnecessary because babies could be protected by increased screening of pregnant women and only inoculating babies of mothers who test positive.
Doctors and researchers who work on hepatitis B say these assertions do not reflect the realities they see, based on data and experience caring for patients.
"Risk-based recommendations do not work," says Dr. Su Wang, an internist and researcher at the Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey, and a global health adviser at the Hepatitis B Foundation. Hepatitis B doesn't only spread through sexual contact or drug use, she said, adding infants can get infected "through microscopic blood that can be transmitted through everyday exposures."
Wang also said screening alone could not fill the gaps: "Newborns can't control who cares for them or whether the adults around them even know their hepatitis B status."
Even if the vaccine remains freely available, weakening the recommendation could lead to fewer babies getting the vaccine, doctors said.
"Adding excessive or ambiguous language around shared decision-making muddies the waters, creates a false sense of scientific uncertainty, and places barriers to care," said Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, an infectious diseases physician representing the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials at this week's meeting. "Many health care providers interpret it as a sign a vaccine is controversial, or that they may be exposed to additional liabilities."
The immediate impacts of the policy change are not clear. Andrew Johnson, a policy analyst with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the vaccine would still be covered by all types of insurance including Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program: "We see no coverage gaps in the newly proposed language and don't believe it would restrict access."
Public health experts urge individuals to look to their medical providers, and to independent recommendations made by professional medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatric and the American Medical Association, for science-based advice on preventing disease and staying healthy.
Presentation from an anti-vaccine lawyer
In addition to the votes on hepatitis B vaccines, ACIP members heard presentations Friday on the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule in the U.S. In an unusual move, ACIP gave the floor to a presenter with no medical or scientific training.
Aaron Siri, a trial attorney who specializes in vaccine lawsuits and who has worked closely with Kennedy, spoke for around an hour and a half on the history of the childhood vaccine schedule, questioned the well-established science on the benefits and safety of many common childhood vaccines. He argued that post-licensure safety studies are needed and called for ending vaccine mandates.
Siri, who has called for the Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval for the polio vaccine, disclosed that he is currently handling "numerous" lawsuits against HHS and its agencies related to vaccination as well as 492 lawsuits claims against HHS regarding the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
In a brief response, ACIP member Meissner objected to the entire presentation. "I don't think you should have been invited," he said. "What you have said is a terrible, terrible distortion of all the facts. All you're focusing on are these very rare, ill-defined side effects, and completely ignoring the extraordinary benefit and promise" of vaccines. He noted there wasn't time to respond to Siri's statements one by one.
ACIP's secretary Mina Zadeh said the committee had invited two other vaccine scientists to present along with Siri, Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and Dr. Paul Offit, who directs the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Zadeh said both declined to attend.
In an email to NPR, Hotez said he declined "because the ACIP appears to have shifted its mission away from science and evidence-based medicine. I'm always happy to discuss the science of vaccines with individuals or groups who are committed to truth and genuine intellectual inquiry," he wrote.
Offit told NPR he was not explicitly invited to this ACIP meeting but would have declined if he had been.
This article was originally published on December 05, 2025.
Related:
Doctors warn delaying hepatitis B shot for newborns could revive a deadly threat
FDA to raise hurdles for vaccines, faulting COVID shots for 10 kids' deaths
RFK Jr. names new slate of vaccine advisers after purging CDC panel
WBUR: https://www.wbur.org/npr/nx-s1-5634004/cdc-hepatitis-b-vaccine-acip-meeting
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