State Health Leaders Condemn Federal Change on Hepatitis B Vaccine
Watering down recommendation for vaccine that has saved babies lives, experts charge.
Hospital waiting area. (Public Domain)
Wisconsin health leaders worry changes to a federal recommendation to vaccinate newborns against hepatitis B will create unnecessary confusion for families and providers.
Currently, all babies are recommended to receive their first dose of the hep B vaccine at birth. It’s been the standard of care in the U.S. for more than 30 years.
But on Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention change their guidance to vaccinate babies if a mother tested positive for the virus. The recommendation says women who test negative or have an unknown status should talk to their doctor about the shot.
According to the CDC website, half of people with hepatitis B do not know they are infected.
Babies who are infected with hepatitis B in their first year of life have a 90 percent chance of developing chronic disease, which can lead to liver failure and cancer. Of those infants, 25 percent will die from the disease, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Jonathan Temte, associate dean of public health and community engagement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said Friday’s vote was not based on new scientific evidence. And he believes it will have consequences for people’s health care.
“This creates a great deal of confusion for parents, for clinicians, for public health providers, for vaccine managers,” Temte said. “I believe there have been purposeful approaches to create as much havoc and a great deal of parental concern over safety when none of this is necessary.”
Dr. Margaret Hennessy, head of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said it’s misleading to suggest that doctors need to seek better consent from birth parents before administering the shot.
“Everything we’ve always done with vaccines has been shared decision-making,” Hennessy said. “It’s always been that I’m recommending it, and the family then decides whether they do it. That’s always been the case.”
Hennessy feels the public and even health providers have forgotten how severe hepatitis B can be for children because the vaccine has nearly eliminated infections in newborns in the U.S. But she worries changing the universal recommendation will lead to a decline in vaccination rates and an uptick in cases, similar to other disease like measles.
“The bottom line with all of this is we have seen children die in this country this year because of vaccine-preventable illnesses,” she said. “I don’t want to see more of that.”
The recommendation change does not prohibit families from vaccinating babies against hep B. But Maureen Busalacchi, president of the Wisconsin Public Health Association, said it could limit access in other ways.
“(The CDC vaccine schedule) gives guidance to insurance companies and state governments in terms of what vaccine schedules should be, and in some cases, what’s paid for,” Busalacchi said. “So we’re putting our kids at risk by not being really clear that this is a necessary and life-saving vaccine.”
She said relying on screening for the virus is an imperfect approach, especially because a mother could contract the virus after testing without realizing it. That’s why public health leaders have supported a universal recommendation for decades.
“I think there’s a lot of frustration with this,” Busalacchi said. “The science is clear. We know this saves infants from infection, and we need to keep the policy as it is.”
State health leaders condemn change in hepatitis B vaccine recommendation was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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