Key Highlights:

• CDC panel no longer recommends HVB vaccine for newborns
• State health officials tout the success of inoculations in babies
• Mothers can pass infection to their infants if they aren’t inoculated

PHOENIX — State health officials are going to continue recommending a hepatitis B shot for all newborns within 24 hours of birth despite a new recommendation to the contrary Friday by a panel of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Joel Terriquez said his agency believes that the risks to newborns of not receiving what has been standard medical procedure for decades far outweigh any concerns about the immunizations. And Terriquez, who heads both the department’s Bureau of Infectious Disease Services and the Bureau of Immunization Services, said scrapping the practice will lead to more children with life-long medical complications and even the need for liver transplants.

He acknowledged that the action by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — whose members were all hand picked by Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — is based on the argument that not all mothers are infected and can pass the disease to their newborns. But Terriquez told Capitol Media Services that it ignores the evidence.

“This vaccine has been very successful in the past and it has been noted to be very safe and effective,” he said. More to the point, he said that prior to the inoculation being standard procedure — that first happened in 1991 — there was up to a 90% risk of babies developing acute infection. And that, Terriquez said, can develop into complications including cirrhosis and liver failure.

“Treatment is very complicated,” he said.

“Treatment has a lot of side effects, treatment is expensive,” Terriquez continued. “And sometimes those patients could end up requiring a liver transplant which is not readily available for everyone.”

And that, he said, makes not giving the shots automatically far more than any risk — if any — of the vaccine itself.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the disease spreads through blood, semen or other body fluids. Transmission can be through sexual contact, sharing of needles, and accidental needlesticks that can infect healthcare workers and caregivers.

More to the point here, pregnant women with the virus can pass it on to babies during childbirth, which is what led to the recommendation for vaccinations of newborns.

In its 8-3 vote Friday, the CDC panel altered its recommendation for universal vaccination, favoring it only for mothers who test positive for the infection or have an unknown health status.

Terriquez said there’s a flaw in all that.

He said most mothers are supposed to be tested as soon as they are pregnant for immunity against hepatitis B. “Some mothers who are not getting the appropriate prenatal care may be not tested at the appropriate time,” Terriquez explained. 

“We know that when someone gets infected it can take up to nine weeks sometimes for that test to be detectable,” he said. “That’s a huge missed opportunity if mom actually happens to be infected without us having the ability to detect it.”

And that, in turn, means the newborns would not get the initial dose, increasing their risk of significant complications,” Terriquez said. 

He isn’t the only one raising questions.

“This has a great potential to cause harm,” said committee member Joseph Hibbeln at Friday’s hearing of the panel in Atlanta. “And I simply hope that the committee will accept its responsibility when this harm is caused.”

The recommendation is not final; the last word belongs to Jim O’Neill, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control. And Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, already is calling on O’Neill — a Kennedy appointee like all the members of the advisory panel — to reject the move, which he called “a mistake.”

“Before the birth dose was recommended, 20,000 newborns a year were infected with hepatitis B,” Cassidy, a medical doctor, wrote in a social media post on X. 

“Now it’s fewer than 20,” he said. “Ending the recommendation for newborns makes it more likely the number of cases will begin to increase again. This makes America sicker.”

The panel, while recommending an end to universal vaccination, did say that mothers who test negative still can talk with their doctors and decide for themselves whether to vaccinate their child. But even then, the panel suggested that the vaccine be administered no earlier than two months after birth.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who chairs the committee, said that date was when infants had matured before the neonatal stage. But Hibbeln said there was no evidence to support the delay, calling it “unconscionable.”

Terriquez also said there is not only no reason for a delay but an increased risk to a baby born to an infected mother. He said adults who get infected generally don’t need treatment. 

“They will just clear it and develop lifelong immunity against hepatitis B,” Terriquez said. But he said that’s not the case for newborns and babies.

“They actually have a worse outcome because a vast majority of them will keep the infection, they will progress into developing complications,” he said. “So, the earlier the better in order to avoid those huge missed opportunities.”

Less clear is whether the recommendation, if adopted, would affect whether insurance companies pay for the inoculation.

Terriquez, however, noted that the state has a federally funded Vaccines for Children Program that provides free vaccines to eligible kids, including those who are uninsured or underinsured. Asked whether that program could be affected if the CDC no longer recommends that all children be vaccinated against hepatitis B, Terriquez responded, “I think this is still being discussed.”

Kennedy, who had a history of questioning vaccine safety before President Trump tapped him for the Cabinet, fired all 17 members of the advisory committee in June, replacing them with his own picks. “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” he said in a statement at the time.

Since that time, the advisory panel has made other controversial decisions, including scaling back recommended COVID vaccinations for individuals aged 6 months to 64 years and suggesting that individuals perform a risk-benefit analysis.