On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vaccine Advisory Panel

voted to end a recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B.

That guidance had been in place for more than 30 years.

Hepatitis B is a highly infectious virus that can cause severe liver damage, including cirrhosis and cancer. The new members of the

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also called ASIP, were handpicked by Health and Human

Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That's after Secretary Kennedy in June,

abruptly fired all 17 members who were serving on the panel when he took over HHS. That led top

officials at the CDC to resign in protest. His new members have publicly stated they want to

revisit the entire childhood vaccine schedule. After the panel's Friday meeting, President Donald Trump expressed

support for such a review, instructing Kennedy to study how U.S. Childhood Vaccine policy differs

from, quote, peer-developed countries. So how might this recommendation to end the hepatitis be shot

for newborns affect public health and what's next for childhood vaccinations? We get to those questions and so much more after this short break.

I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A podcast. Back with more in just a moment. Stay with us.

Here to guide us through all of it is Michael Osterholm. He's a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where he directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Michael, welcome back to the program. Thank you. Also joining us from Saskatoon in Canada is Angela Rasmussen. She's a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan and co-editor-in-chief of the journal

Vaccine. Angie, welcome back. Thanks for having me, Jen. So Michael, just tell us a little bit more about

this new recommendation made by ASIP regarding the hepatitis B vaccine and how it differs from

the recommended practice of the last 30-plus years. I think it's very important to emphasize the fact, number one, that the overall review of

this vaccine did not change from what it was prior to this meeting.

Our center, which has a activity called the Vaccine Integrity Project, actually did an extensive

review of more than 400

studies and showed that the birth dose is highly effective and has a very strong safety profile.

And a point to emphasize it remains available to protect your newborn.

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