The new hepatitis B vaccine recommendations.
Tangle
Isaac Saul
4.7 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8–3 to eliminate a longstanding recommendation that all newborns receive a first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The committee instead recommended that women who test negative for hepatitis B should consult with their doctors to determine whether their babies should be given the first dose of the vaccine, suggesting that the initial dose be administered after the infant is at least two months old. The committee voted on the change after it heard presentations from several vaccine critics; no Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) subject-matter experts presented to the panel.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. |
| 0:08.4 | Good morning, good afternoon and good evening and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. |
| 0:28.1 | I'm your host, Isaac Saul. It is Monday, December 8th. My voice, my voice is a little bit fried. I was in new york city this weekend uh i had a couple events |
| 0:41.8 | alumni events for an ultimate frisbee team i played for um on top of giving a speech at the event |
| 0:49.5 | i uh also competed in a game alumni versus currents where I was screaming a lot and then we had |
| 0:57.1 | back-to-back nights of events and hanging out in some loud bars in New York City and I was doing |
| 1:02.3 | a lot of talking and yeah I managed to fry my voice so I apologize for how raspy and |
| 1:09.6 | gaspy I sound today. |
| 1:11.8 | But rest assured, it's from the product of having a fun weekend connecting with old friends and competing a bit, which is always super fun. |
| 1:22.5 | We're covering the Hepbee vaccine stuff today. |
| 1:24.9 | So, man, this is an interesting one. I always |
| 1:32.1 | feel a little bit worried and hesitant to wait into this stuff because it's like, it's, it's, |
| 1:37.3 | it's politics and it's policy, but it's also medicine. And there's something about us being in the |
| 1:43.7 | arena on these questions of science and |
| 1:47.0 | medicine. That makes me uncomfortable and worried a little bit, but I think we give this some |
| 1:51.6 | good, fair treatment today, and I'm excited to share my take with you. Before we jump in, |
| 1:57.5 | I do want to give you a quick heads up that we published on Friday a piece from A.M. Hickman about his experience as a self-described vagabond, hobo, and hitchhiker in the United States in which he talked about why he misses being homeless. |
| 2:12.0 | Hickman's story received a huge wide range of reactions from praise for his writing to criticism of his ideas. |
| 2:19.9 | And as always, that's kind of the sort of stuff we like publishing here. |
| 2:24.5 | Fresh, engaging perspectives that drive interesting dialogue and debate. |
| 2:29.3 | I don't think anything he said or did or anything was out of bounds. |
| 2:32.5 | I think it was all so interesting and compelling as a |
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