CDC

RFK Jr.’s loathesome edits: CDC website now falsely links vaccines and autism

aluminum, anti-vaccine, autism, CDC, health, MMR, vaccines / 9u50fv / November 20, 2025

With ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the country’s top health official, a federal webpage that previously laid out the ample evidence refuting the misinformation that vaccines cause autism was abruptly replaced Wednesday with an anti-vaccine screed that promotes the false link.

It’s a move that is sure to be celebrated by Kennedy’s fringe anti-vaccine followers, but will only sow more distrust, fear, and confusion among the public, further erode the country’s crumbling vaccination rates, and ultimately lead to more disease, suffering, and deaths from vaccine-preventable infections, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website titled “Autism and Vaccines,” the previous top “key point” accurately reported that: “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”

But, under Kennedy, the top “key point” is now the erroneous statement: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to questions from Ars Technica about the change, including why it appears to be dismissing the substantial number of high-quality studies providing evidence that there is no association between lifesaving immunizations and the neurodevelopmental disorder. It also did not address questions of whether CDC scientists were included in the rewrite.

An emailed response attributed to HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said, “We are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science.”

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CDC data confirms US is 2 months away from losing measles elimination status

arizona, CDC, health, Infectious disease, measles, outbreak, texas, Utah, vaccination / 9u50fv / November 19, 2025

Unsurprising

This 9171 subtype “continues, unfortunately uninterrupted, across multiple jurisdictions,” David Sugerman, who leads the CDC measles response, said on the call.

According to the Times, local health officials are pessimistic that they’ll be able to stamp out the virus’s spread, saying that vaccination efforts have had “limited” impact. As Ars reported previously, vaccination rates are dangerously low in two measles hotspots: northwestern Mohave County, Arizona, and the southwest health district of Utah. Vaccination rates among kindergartners in the 2024–2025 school year were 78.4 percent and 80.7 percent, respectively. That’s well below the 95 percent target needed to keep the virus from spreading onward in the communities.

In addition, public health officials in Arizona and Utah have reported barriers to responding to the outbreak. Around a quarter of cases don’t know how they were exposed, suggesting cases and exposures are being missed. In late October, health officials in Salt Lake County, Utah, said that a person likely infected with measles refused to cooperate with their investigation, leaving them unable to confirm the probable case.

David Kimberlin, who sits on a panel of experts that analyzes measles data for the United States’ elimination status review, told the Times, “It would not surprise me in the least if there’s continued spread across these next several months.”

To date, the CDC has tallied 1,723 measles cases across 42 states. Most (87 percent) of those cases were linked to outbreaks, of which there have been 45 this year. For context, there were 16 outbreaks and a total of 285 measles cases in the US last year. This year’s measles cases mark a 33-year high.

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As shutdown ends, dubious CDC panel gets back to dismantling vaccine schedule

ACIP, american academy of pediatrics, anti-vaccine, CDC, health, hepatitis B, kennedy, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / Mike M. / November 15, 2025

Nevertheless, Kennedy’s ACIP members planned to push the first dose back a month. A vote was prepared to recommend not giving a birth dose unless there was “individual based decision-making.” While at first the panel seemed poised to vote in favor of the change, the plan collapsed with basic questioning.

Voting ACIP member Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist, noted: “I’m unclear if we’ve been presented with any safety or data comparing before one month to after one month,” he said. They had not.

“And,” Hibbeln continued, “I’m wondering why one month was selected as our time point and if there are data to help to inform us if there’s greater risk of adverse effects before one month or after one month at all.”

There is no data suggesting that such a move would be more or less safe.

The discussion quickly spiraled from there with an eventual vote of 11-1 to table voting on the vaccine recommendation. According to the Federal Register notice, ACIP will try to take up the topic again. They could revive the vote or attack some other aspect of vaccine recommendations.

Pediatricians fight back

Health experts have blasted Kennedy’s lineup and their attacks on childhood vaccines, including the hepatitis B vaccination schedule. The current schedule “remains the best protection against serious health problems like liver disease and cancer,” the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasized to Ars.

With ACIP’s standing tarnished under Kennedy, AAP has put forth its own evidence-based vaccine schedule for pediatricians to trust. They’ve also been a prominent opponent among medical organizations to Kennedy’s efforts. For instance, in a revised federal lawsuit, the AAP along with other medical organizations is seeking to overturn all decisions made by Kennedy’s ACIP and replace the entire panel with actual experts.

Kennedy’s appointees “lack the credentials and experience required of their role,” and all their votes should be declared “null and void,” the organization said.

AAP President Susan Kressly said that pediatricians are already seeing the effects of having an anti-vaccine activist as the US health secretary, namely “fear, decreased vaccine confidence, and barriers for families to access vaccines.”

“The nation’s children are already paying the price in avoidable illnesses and hospitalizations,” Kressly said. “We urge federal leaders to restore the science-based deliberative process that has made the United States a global leader in public health. Urgent action is needed.”

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Formula with “cleanest ingredients” recalled after 15 babies get botulism

botulism, ByHeart, CDC, fda, Formula, health, outbreak, recall / 9u50fv / November 12, 2025

Infant botulism

The US sees around 100 cases of botulism in infants each year. The potentially deadly disease is caused by a potent neurotoxin produced by Clostridium botulinum and related species. These bacteria can form hardy spores that are ubiquitous in the environment, including in dust, water, and soil. When the spores germinate, the growing bacteria produce the toxin. This toxin can kill by blocking the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in motor neurons that would activate muscle movement. The result is flaccid paralysis that spreads down the body.

People can develop botulism in a variety of ways, including via infected wounds or by inhaling spores. Generally, foodborne botulism occurs when people eat the toxin directly, such as in improperly canned foods where the bacteria grew. But babies have their own unique form of botulism when they ingest just the spores.

In humans older than about 12 months, the stomach’s acidity is usually enough to kill off botulism-causing spores. But infants have lower gastric acidity, and their immune responses and protective gut bacterial communities aren’t fully established yet. Thus, if they ingest the spores, the bacteria can start growing in their gastrointestinal tracts—and start producing toxin, causing infantile botulism. Symptoms usually develop 10 to 30 days after ingestion. About 70 percent of all botulism cases are in infants.

Honey is one of the most well-known sources of botulism-causing spores for infants, accounting for about 20 percent of cases. But environmental sources are also key culprits, such as living near construction sites as well as dust debris from vacuum cleaners.

The common early symptoms of botulism in infants are constipation, poor feeding, loss of head control, and difficulty swallowing. As the disease progresses, shallow breathing and overall floppiness develops. About half of all babies with botulism will need to be intubated, even if they’re treated with BabyBIG. A century ago, infant botulism had a 90 percent fatality rate, but today most infants make a full recovery, though it can take weeks to months.

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CDC tormented: HR workers summoned from furlough to lay off themselves, others

CDC, health, Trump / Kelly Newman / October 16, 2025

Traumatized CDC has lost 33% of its workforce this year, union says.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – AUGUST 9: Bullet holes are seen in windows at the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) Global Headquarters following a shooting that left two dead, on August 9, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. On August 8, a gunman opened fire near the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control, killing a DeKalb County Police Department officer before being found dead by gunfire. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

The dust is still settling at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after a mass layoff on Friday, which former employees at the beleaguered agency are describing as a massacre.

In separate press briefings on Tuesday, a network of terminated CDC staff that goes by the name the National Public Health Coalition, and the union representing employees at the agency discussed what the wide-scale cuts mean for the American people, as well as the trauma, despair, and damage they have wreaked on the workers of the once-premier public health agency.

In a normal federal layoff—called a reduction in force, or RIF—the agency would be given a full outline of the roles and branches or divisions affected, as well as some explanation for the cuts, such as alleged fraud, abuse, or redundancy. However, the Trump administration has provided no such information or explanation, leaving current and former employees to essentially crowdsource what has been lost and only guess at the possible reasons.

The numbers

The union representing CDC workers, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2883, has been assessing the cuts since termination emails began arriving in employee inboxes late Friday. The union estimates that the Trump administration sent termination notices to 1,300 CDC employees on Friday, in what they called an illegal “politically-motivated stunt.” Of those 1,300 terminations, around 700 were rescinded, beginning on Saturday.

The Trump administration said the 700 rescinded terminations were sent due to a “coding error.” But CDC workers didn’t buy that explanation, saying all the terminations were intentional, and some were only reversed after backlash erupted when people realized what the administration was trying to cut—for example, terminating the experts responding to domestic measles outbreaks and those responding to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who received RIF notices that were later rescinded. Still, with the rescissions, some 600 terminations appear to remain.

In all, the union estimated that the CDC has lost 33 percent of its workforce since the start of the Trump administration. In January, there were roughly 13,000 CDC workers total. Since then, about 3,000 have been fully separated from the agency, including 600 laid off in a RIF on April 1, and 2,400 who were either fired or forced out amid pressure campaigns. An additional 1,300 have been laid off but are not yet fully separated from the agency; they remain on paid administrative leave but are unable to do their work.

In the RIF Friday, laid-off employees said they were given notices that list their termination effective date as December 8, leaving a 60-day period in which they would be on administrative leave.

The RIF was carried out amid an ongoing government shutdown over a health care funding dispute, and the Trump administration has claimed that the RIF is a consequence of the shutdown. But the union, along with federal employment lawyers and even some senior government officials, say a RIF during a shutdown is illegal; a temporary lapse in government funding is not a legitimate reason for a RIF under federal regulations, and it runs afoul of a federal law that prohibits the government from incurring new costs during a shutdown, such as by promising severance packages.

Brutal cuts

In practice, a RIF amid a shutdown added more trauma to the demoralized staff. In opening remarks, Local AFGE 2883 President Yolanda Jacobs noted that the CDC Human Resources staff had been furloughed during the shutdown but were temporarily brought back into work just so they could process termination letters—including their own. A terminated CDC employee who spoke on condition of anonymity said that more than 90 percent of the HR staff is now gone.

Among the terminations were also mental health workers who were helping CDC staff recover from an August attack, in which a gunman fired over 500 rounds at CDC buildings full of agency employees and killed a local police officer.

Another terminated CDC worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity discussed the personal toll of the RIF. She had worked at the agency for over two decades and learned of her termination Friday night as she was doing dishes after making homemade pizza with her family—money worries kept them from ordering out. Her phone “started going crazy” as coworkers were checking in after receiving their RIF notices. She dug out her work laptop, which had been set aside since she was furloughed, to find her own RIF notice at the top of her inbox.

As text messages continued to come in through the night, she said it was “heartbreaking and devastating” when she realized the Trump administration was “actually dismantling us.”

“These are just hardworking Americans who just want to do their job, who just want to help people, who want to make sure the correct information is out there [and] that we are preventing things from happening,” she said.

Since the RIF has sunk in, she has started to worry more for her family and their finances. During the furlough, paychecks are uncertain. And her effective termination date in December will land between holidays, when hiring is slow. She worried about affording Christmas presents for her family.

She also said that staff have asked about getting other jobs while on administrative leave but were told that in order to do that, they would need to get approval from the CDC’s ethics office to ensure there were no conflicts of interest. But staff can’t actually do that because everyone at the ethics office also got RIF notices.

Losses

Throughout the briefings yesterday, staff highlighted that the RIF did not just trim here and there, as one might expect with cuts designed to make the organization leaner. Instead, it lopped off entire teams and branches, completely shutting down whole lines of work.

One former CDC employee spoke broadly of big hits to experts in chronic disease, global health, and the National Center for Health Statistics, which runs critical data collection that states and local health departments rely on. The CDC’s library staff are all gone. Suicide prevention experts have been cut, as well as communications and policy staff, who develop briefings and provide information to Congress members.

Abigail Tighe, a former CDC employee with National Public Health Coalition, tried to put the cuts in context, saying: “We are losing the people with all the knowledge to prevent childhood drownings, child abuse, and suicide. We’re losing the experts who help us track and understand the health and safety needs of our communities [and] the brave and brilliant professionals who, on a moment’s notice, respond to new and unknown outbreaks across the world. And that’s just a few examples.”

A terminated scientist who spoke on condition of anonymity said that her entire office was eliminated in the RIF. “My heart breaks for my colleagues and friends who have been tormented, traumatized, shot at, threatened daily. These are kind, hardworking, thoughtful people whose lives are being overturned,” she said.

But, “ultimately,” she said, “I am terrified for the public safety of our country.”

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

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Layoffs, a “coding error,” chaos: Trump admin ravages the health dept.

CDC, health, health department, HHS, layoffs, robert f kennedy jr, Trump / Beth Washington / October 13, 2025

Federal health agencies are reeling from mass layoffs on Friday that appear to have particularly devastated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite some terminations being rescinded on Saturday.

Numbers are still sketchy, but reports from Friday indicate that more than 4,000 federal workers overall were initially targeted for layoffs. The Trump administration linked the firings to the ongoing government shutdown, which legal experts have suggested is illegal. Unions representing federal workers have already filed a lawsuit challenging the move.

Of the reported 4,000 terminations, about 1,100 to 1,200 were among employees in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). HHS is a massive department that houses critical federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, among others. Before Trump’s second term, the HHS workforce was about 82,000, but that was slashed to about 62,000 earlier this year amid initial cuts and efforts to push civil servants out.

While it’s unclear where all the new cuts occurred, reports from anonymous and external sources describe a major gutting of the CDC, an agency that has already been severely wounded, losing significant numbers this year. Its former leaders have accused the Trump administration of censoring its scientific work. It suffered a dramatic ousting of its Senate-confirmed director in August. And it was the target of a gunman weeks earlier, who shot over 500 rounds at its employees, killing a local police officer.

As terminations went out Friday, reports indicated that the terminations hit staff who produce the CDC’s esteemed journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, employees responding to the measles outbreaks in the US, others responding to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, workers in the Global Health Center, and disease detectives in the Epidemic Intelligence Service.

Layoffs, a “coding error,” chaos: Trump admin ravages the health dept. Read More »

Childhood vaccines safe for a little longer as CDC cancels advisory meeting

ACIP, anti-vaccine, CDC, health, rfk jr, vaccines / 9u50fv / October 10, 2025

An October meeting of a key federal vaccine advisory committee has been canceled without explanation, sparing the evidence-based childhood vaccination schedule from more erosion—at least for now.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was planning to meet on October 22 and 23, which would have been the committee’s fourth meeting this year. But the meeting schedule was updated in the past week to remove those dates and replace them with “2025 meeting, TBD.”

Ars Technica contacted the Department of Health and Human Services to ask why the meeting was canceled. HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard offered no explanation, only saying that the “official meeting dates and agenda items will be posted on the website once finalized.”

ACIP is tasked with publicly reviewing and evaluating the wealth of safety and efficacy data on vaccines and then offering evidence-based recommendations for their use. Once the committee’s recommendations are adopted by the CDC, they set national vaccination standards for children and establish which shots federal programs and private insurance companies are required to fully cover.

In the past, the committee has been stacked with highly esteemed, thoroughly vetted medical experts, who diligently conducted their somewhat esoteric work on immunization policy with little fanfare. That changed when ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became health secretary. In June, Kennedy abruptly and unilaterally fired all 17 ACIP members, falsely accusing them of being riddled with conflicts of interest. He then installed his own hand-selected members. With the exception of one advisor—pediatrician and veteran ACIP member Cody Meissner—the members are poorly qualified, have gone through little vetting, and embrace the same anti-vaccine and dangerous fringe ideas as Kennedy.

Corrupted committee

So far this year, Kennedy’s advisors have met twice, producing chaotic meetings during which members revealed a clear lack of understanding of the data at hand and the process of setting vaccine recommendations, all while setting policy decisions long sought by anti-vaccine activists. The first meeting, in June, included seven members selected by Kennedy. In that meeting, the committee rescinded the recommendation for flu vaccines containing a preservative called thimerosal based on false claims from anti-vaccine groups that it causes autism. The panel also ominously said it would re-evaluate the entire childhood vaccination schedule, putting life-saving shots at risk.

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Despite RFK Jr.’s shenanigans, COVID shot access will be a lot like last year

ACIP, CDC, COVID-19 vaccines, cvs, health, vaccines, Walgreens / Beth Washington / October 8, 2025

In an interview with Ars Technica in August, Brigid Groves, vice president of professional affairs for the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), signaled that efforts to limit access to COVID-19 vaccines is concerning to APhA, which is the leading organization representing pharmacists.

“We are concerned about that because the data and evidence point to the fact that this vaccine is safe and effective for [young, otherwise healthy] patients,” Groves said. “So, to suddenly arbitrarily limit that is very concerning to us.”

And, with the CDC’s permissive recommendations, pharmacies are not limiting them. Representatives for both CVS and Walgreens told The Washington Post that they would not require patients under 65 to prove they have an underlying condition to get a COVID-19 vaccine. CVS won’t ask you to self-attest to having a condition, and Walgreens also said that it won’t require any proof.

“In simplest terms, if a patient wants to get the vaccine, they’ll get it,” Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson, told the Post.

With the shared decision-making, there may be extra forms about risks and benefits that might take an extra few minutes, but it should otherwise be just like past years.

On Tuesday, this reporter was able to easily book same-day appointments for an updated COVID-19 vaccine at local CVS and Walgreens pharmacies in North Carolina, without attesting to any medical conditions.

Children

Shots for younger children could be trickier: While adults and older children can visit their pharmacy and get vaccinated relatively easily, younger children (particularly those under age 5) may have a harder time. Pharmacists typically do not vaccinate those younger children—which has always been the case—and parents will have to visit the pediatrician.

Pediatricians, like pharmacists, are likely to be supportive of broad access to the shots. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said that all children should have access. The AAP also specifically encourages children under age 2 and children with underlying conditions to get vaccinated, because those children are at higher risk of severe disease.

Despite RFK Jr.’s shenanigans, COVID shot access will be a lot like last year Read More »

RFK Jr. drags feet on COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, delaying shots for kids

ACIP, CDC, COVID-19 vaccines, health, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / Mike M. / October 3, 2025

Previously, the FDA narrowed the shots’ labels to include only people age 65 and older, and those 6 months and older at higher risk. But the ACIP recommended that all people age 6 months and older could get the shot based on shared decision-making with a health care provider. Although the shared decision-making adds a new requirement for getting the vaccine, that decision-making does not require a prescription and can be done not only with doctors, but also with nurses and pharmacists. Most people in the US get their seasonal COVID-19 vaccines at their local pharmacy.

Ars Technica reached out to the HHS on Thursday about whether there was a determination on the COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and, if not, when that is expected to happen and why there is a delay. The HHS responded, confirming that no determination had been made yet, but did not answer any of the other questions and did not provide a comment for the record.

In past years, ACIP recommendations and CDC sign-offs have happened earlier in the year to provide adequate time for a rollout. In 2024, ACIP voted on COVID-19 vaccinations in June, for instance, and then-CDC Director Mandy Cohen signed off that day. Now that we’re into October, it remains unclear when or even if the CDC will sign off on the recommendation and then, if the recommendation is adopted by the CDC, how much longer after that it would take for states to roll out the vaccines to children in the VFC program.

“Children who depend on this program, including children with chronic conditions, are still waiting unprotected. The delay in adopting COVID-19 vaccine recommendations puts their health at risk, reduces access and choice for families, and puts a strain on providers who want to deliver the best care for their youngest patients,” Susan Kansagra, the chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said in a statement to Stat.

For now, children and adults with private insurance have access to the shots without the final sign-off, and health insurance companies have said that they will continue to maintain coverage for the vaccines without the final federal approval.

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In 2022, the world axed a disease name seen as racist. US just switched back.

CDC, health, mpox, Trump / 9u50fv / October 1, 2025

Switching names

In November 2022, the WHO decided to change the name. The United Nations health agency noted that it had received reports from individuals and countries about the “racist and stigmatizing language online, in other settings, and in some communities.” The WHO decided to switch to the name “mpox” with a one-year grace period.

The agency also clarified its authority to make such a change, saying: “Assigning names to new and, very exceptionally, to existing diseases is the responsibility of WHO under the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) and the WHO Family of International Health Related Classifications through a consultative process which includes WHO Member States.”

The WHO does not, however, have the authority to change the names of viruses. That power belongs to the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, which has not changed the name of the virus.

While the virus remains the same, the world has shifted to using mpox to discuss the disease. The US CDC followed suit, changing its websites and health information to use the new name.

This month, however, the CDC reverted to monkeypox. The change was first reported by NPR. When journalists have asked about the change, the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes the CDC) has responded only by saying “Monkeypox is the name of the viral disease caused by the monkeypox virus,” which is not accurate.

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RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine panel realizes it has no idea what it’s doing, skips vote

ACIP, CDC, health, hepatitis B, Rober F. Kennedy Jr., vaccine / DJ Henderson / September 19, 2025

With a lack of data and confusing language, the panel tabled the vote indefinitely.

Catherine Stein, far right, speaks during a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

The second day of a two-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—a panel currently made up of federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—is off to a dramatic start, with the advisors seemingly realizing they have no idea what they’re doing.

The inexperienced, questionably qualified group that has espoused anti-vaccine rhetoric started its second day of deliberations by reversing a vote taken the previous day on federal coverage for the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine. Yesterday, the group voted to restrict access to MMRV, stripping recommendations for its use in children under age 4. While that decision was based on no new data, it passed with majority support of 8–3 (with one abstention). (For an explanation of that, see our coverage of yesterday’s part of the meeting here.)

But puzzlingly, they then voted to uphold access and coverage of MMRV vaccines for children under age 4 if they receive free vaccines through the federal Vaccines for Children program, which covers about half of American children, mostly low-income. The discrepancy projected the idea that the alleged safety concerns that led the panel to rescind the recommendation for MMRV generally, somehow did not apply to low-income, vulnerable children. The vote also created significant confusion for VFC coverage, which typically aligns with recommendations made by the panel.

Today, Kennedy’s ACIP retook the vote, deciding 9-0 (with three abstentions) to align VFC coverage with their vote yesterday to strip the recommendation for MMRV in young children.

Hepatitis B vaccine newborn dose

Next, they moved to a vote they failed to take yesterday as scheduled—a vote to strip a recommendation for a dose of hepatitis B vaccine that is currently recommended to be given universally on the first day of a baby’s life. Instead, the proposed recommendation would be to wait at least a month before the first dose—opening a window for a highly infectious disease that leads to chronic liver disease and cancer—unless the baby’s mother tested positive for the virus.

While it initially seemed that the panel was poised to approve the change, cracks in the plan began to appear quickly this morning, as some members of the panel noted that the proposed recommendation made no sense and was based on zero data.

Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist on the panel, raised the obvious concern yesterday, saying: “I’m unclear if we’ve been presented with any safety or data comparing before one month to after one month, and I’m wondering why one month was selected as our time point and if there are data to help to inform us if there’s greater risk of adverse effects before one month or after one month at all, let alone in negative mothers.”

There was no data comparing the risks and benefits of moving the first dose from the day of birth to any other time point. And there is no data suggesting that such a move would be more or less safe.

Adam Langer, Acting Principal Deputy Director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, stressed in his presentation on the safety data yesterday, that the vaccine is safe—there are no safety concerns for giving a dose at birth. Adverse side effects are rare, he said, and when they do occur, they’re mild. “The worst adverse event you could imagine, anaphylaxis, has been very rarely reported at only 1.1 cases per 1 million vaccine doses administered.”

Langer gave a clear explanation for why newborns are vaccinated at day one. Hepatitis B, which primarily affects the liver, spreads via bodily fluids and can live on surfaces for up to seven days. It can spread easily; only a tiny microscopic amount of blood or fluid is enough for a child to be infected. For some, an infection can be short-lived, but for others it can become chronic, which leads to liver disease, cirrhosis, liver transplant, and liver cancer. The risk of the infection becoming chronic increases with the younger someone is when they’re infected.

Benefits and harms

Newborns who get hepatitis B from their mothers at birth have a 90 percent chance of developing a chronic infection, and 25 percent of those children will die prematurely from the disease. Up to 16 percent of pregnant women in the US are not tested for hepatitis B during pregnancy. Newborns and babies can also get infected from other people in their family or household, given hepatitis B’s infectiousness. Prior to the universal birth dose recommendation, a study of US-born children born to immigrant mothers found that 7 percent to 11 percent of them had hepatitis B while their mothers were negative. This highlights that unvaccinated babies and children can pick up the infection from family or the community.

Part of the reason for this is the elusiveness of the disease. While about 2.4 million people in the US are infected with hepatitis B, about 50 percent of those infected do not know that they’re infected.

In 1991, ACIP began recommending universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth; acute hepatitis B cases then fell from around 18,000 to about 5,500 in 2005 to about 2,200 in 2023. Since 2018, ACIP has recommended universal Hep B vaccination for all newborns within 24 hours of birth.

In the discussion, panel members pushed back on the universal birth dose, arguing that if mothers tested negative, there was little to no risk—downplaying the risk of other family or community exposure and assuming that test coverage could increase to 100 percent. There was a lot of discussion of why some women aren’t tested and if doctors can just try to assess whether there’s a risk that a family member might have the infection—even if those family members don’t know themselves that they’re infected.

Data and trust

Langer acknowledged there might be ways to assess risk from at least the mother in the 24-hour window after birth—”or,” he suggested, “you cannot have to worry about all of those different things that could go wrong, and you could simply give the vaccine because there is no data available that says that there is any harm that would come to a newborn compared to a one-month-old infant [getting the vaccine.]”

He summed up the discussion succinctly: “The only thing that we’re discussing here is if there’s some benefit or removal of harm that comes from waiting a month. And I have not seen any data that says that there is any benefit to the infant of waiting a month, but there are a number of potential harms to the infant of waiting a month.”

Panel member Robert Malone, who has falsely claimed that COVID-19 vaccines cause a form of AIDS, explained that the proposed change for the hep B vaccination was not due to any safety concern or evidence-based reason, but about trust among parents who have been exposed to vaccine misinformation.

“The signal that is prompting this is not one of safety, it is one of trust,” Malone said yesterday. “It is one of parents uncomfortable with this medical procedure being performed at birth in a rather unilateral fashion without significant informed consent at a time in particular when there has been a loss of trust in the public health enterprise and vaccines in general.”

Dashed decisions

But the questions and uncertainties of the proposed recommendation and the data behind it dogged the committee again this morning.

This morning, the voting language was put on a slide and immediately drew criticism. The language was:

If a mother tests [hepatitis B]-negative:

The first dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine is not given until the child is at least one month old.

Infants may receive a dose of Hepatitis B vaccine before one month according to individual based decision-making. *

*Also referred to as shared clinical decision-making.

Hibbeln, the psychiatrist, again pushed back, this time noting that the language of the change is confusing. “You can’t say don’t give it and then give an opportunity to give it,” he said, arguing that shared clinical decision-making is, essentially, all or nothing.

Discussion quickly spiraled, with another member questioning whether there was any data presented at all on the proposed recommendation. There was a fast motion to table the vote indefinitely, and the motion to table passed in a speedy vote of 11–1, with the ACIP chair, Martin Kulldorff, being the only holdout.

For the rest of the day, the panel is discussing COVID-19 vaccines. Stay tuned.

RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine panel realizes it has no idea what it’s doing, skips vote Read More »

In new level of stupid, RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine advisors axe MMRV recommendation

ACIP, CDC, health, MMR, mmrv, robert f kennedy jr, vaccine / DJ Henderson / September 19, 2025

The vote to strip the recommendation came after a day of inept discussion.

An MMR and VAR vaccine ready for a pediatric vaccination at Kaiser Permanente East Medical offices in Denver in 2015. Credit: Getty | Joe Amon

The panel of vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted on Thursday to change the federal vaccine recommendations for children, removing safe, well-established vaccine doses from current schedules and realizing Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda to erode federal vaccine policy and sow distrust.

Specifically, the panel—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—voted to remove the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s previous recommendation for use of a measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (chickenpox) MMRV combination vaccine for children under 4 years old.

The context

In June, Kennedy fired all 17 highly qualified, highly vetted members of ACIP and quickly replaced them with seven questionable members, who largely did not have subject matter expertise. Moreover, many of them have clearly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric and skepticism about pandemic responses and COVID-19 vaccines. At least two new members have been paid witnesses in trials against vaccine makers, a clear conflict of interest. Earlier this week, Kennedy added five additional members, who raise the same anti-vaccine concerns as the first group.

In the meeting today—the first of two all-day meetings—members made clear their inexperience and lack of expertise in evaluating vaccine policy. They asked basic questions about study data and analysis—such as asking what a “low confidence” designation means—and claimed CDC presentations lacked critical data when, in fact, a CDC scientist had just presented the exact data in question.

The first half of the day focused on the MMRV vaccine, while the second half focused on a newborn dose of the hepatitis B (hep B) vaccine. A vote was initially scheduled for that vaccine today, too, but was postponed after the panel decided to change the wording of the voting question. They meet again tomorrow to vote on the hep B recommendation as well as recommendations for this year’s COVID-19 vaccine. Ars Technica will have coverage of the second half of the meeting tomorrow, along with a report on the hepatitis B discussion today.

MMRV vaccine change

For the MMRV vaccine, the panel rehashed an issue that vaccine experts had thoroughly examined years ago. Currently, the CDC recommends children get vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (chickenpox) twice—one dose at 12 to 15 months, and a second dose between the ages of 4 and 6 years.

In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration approved a combo shot for all four—the MMRV vaccine—which provided an alternative to the previous method of giving an MMR vaccine dose (against measles, mumps, and rubella) plus a separate varicella vaccine dose at the same time. (This vaccination strategy is shorthanded as MMR + V.) Thus, the MMRV combo shot meant one fewer shot for children. But, in 2008, post-market data suggested that the MMRV shot might have a slightly higher risk of causing febrile seizures (seizures associated with fevers), which is a very low risk with the MMR + V separate shots.

Febrile seizures are a somewhat common reaction in young children; this type of seizure almost entirely occurs in children under age 5 years, most often striking between 14 and 18 months. The seizures are short, usually less than a minute or two, and they can be caused by essentially anything that can cause a fever—ear infections, vaccines, the flu, etc. For parents, a febrile seizure can be very scary and lead them to bring their child to a doctor or hospital. However, febrile seizures are almost always harmless—the prognosis is “excellent,” as CDC staff experts noted. Nearly all children fully recover with no long-term problems. By age 5, up to 5 percent of all children have had a febrile seizure at some point, for some reason.

Low risks

In post-market studies of the MMRV vaccine, it was very clear that a slightly increased risk of febrile seizures was only linked to the first dose (given at 12 to 15 months, not the second, given at 4 to 6 years). In studies of over 400,000 children, data found that the risk of a febrile seizure after a first-dose MMRV vaccine was 7 to 8.5 seizure cases for every 10,000 vaccinations. That’s compared to 3.2 to 4.2 seizure cases in 10,000 vaccinations with MMR + V. In all, a first-dose MMRV vaccine had about one additional febrile seizure per 2,300 to 2,600 children vaccinated compared with MMR + V.

In 2009, CDC vaccine experts reviewed all the data and updated the vaccine recommendation. They maintained that MMRV and the MMR+V vaccinations are still both safe, effective, and recommended at both vaccination time points. But, they added the nuance that there is a preference (or a default, basically) for using the MMR + V shots for the first dose, unless a parent expressly wanted the MMRV vaccine for that first dose. This skirted the slightly increased risk of febrile seizure in young children, without entirely taking away the option if a parent prioritized fewer jabs and wanted the MMRV. For the second dose, again, both MMRV and MMR + V are options, but the CDC stated a preference for the one-shot MMRV.

Since then, about 85 percent of vaccinated children have gotten MMR + V for their first dose shots, with the other 15 percent getting the MMRV vaccine.

Inept discussion

In the discussion today, Kennedy’s members seemed to have little grasp of the issue at hand and the clinical significance of febrile seizures generally. They continued to circle back to unfounded concerns about febrile seizures and fringe theories about potential long-term effects.

Cody Meissner, a pediatric professor at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine who has served on ACIP in the past—arguably the most qualified of Kennedy’s new lineup—was bewildered at why the committee was rehashing the issue addressed years ago. “This discussion is really a déjà vu for me,” he said. Yet, while Meisner felt the issue was settled and pediatricians were well-equipped to calm parents’ fears about febrile seizures, the other members could not be swayed. They claimed, without evidence, that parents of children who have febrile seizures after a vaccine would be less likely to get future vaccines.

As the committee seemed to be leaning toward removing the recommendation for MMRV for the first dose, Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, who attended the meeting as a liaison, pushed back strongly. He pointed out that—as with the last time Kennedy’s ACIP met—they were not following the standard framework for making and changing recommendations.

“Are we going to have a thoroughly vetted evidence-to-recommend framework presentation that looks at all the harms benefits, acceptability, feasibility—with input from practicing clinicians and liaisons in order to make an informed decision?” Goldman asked. “I would argue that this recommendation is going to create more confusion among the public.”

Goldman noted that if the committee rescinds the recommendation for MMRV for children under 4, the shot would no longer be covered by the Vaccines for Children (VFC) Program, a federal program for Medicaid-eligible and under- or uninsured kids, which covers about half of American children.

“And finally, you are taking away the choice of parents to have informed consent and discussion with their physician on what they want to do for the health and benefit of their children,” Goldman said. “So, I urge this committee not to change the recommendations if they truly want to give the power to the parents to decide what is best for their child and allow them to make the choice in consultation with their physicians.”

Voting confusion

In the end, Kennedy’s panel voted 8–3 (with one abstention) to not recommend MMRV for children under age 4, meaning the MMRV vaccine could potentially no longer be available for some children under age 4. Private insurance companies are required to cover ACIP-recommended vaccines, so this move strips the recommendation and that coverage requirement.

But, anticipating such a change, AHIP, a trade organization representing insurance companies, put out a statement earlier this week suggesting that they would still cover the MMRV vaccine for children under 4, even if it’s not required.

“Health plans will continue to cover all ACIP-recommended immunizations that were recommended as of September 1, 2025, including updated formulations of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines, with no cost-sharing for patients through the end of 2026,” the statement reads.

But, there’s more: In a second vote today, ACIP voted 8–1 (with three abstentions) against changing VFC coverage for MMRV. Therefore, the VFC program will continue to cover MMRV vaccines for children under age 4. This is a split from standard policy that is likely to spur confusion, because VFC typically goes with ACIP recommendations. Also, Medicaid’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) has to follow the ACIP vaccine recommendation and thus will no longer cover MMRV for children under age 4 covered by CHIP.

One of the abstentions on the VFC coverage vote was Meissner, who didn’t want to strip the recommendation or the VFC coverage but was entirely confused by how this would work in practice.

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