Experts defy CDC panel’s vote on Hep B vaccines

Medical societies, health departments and insurers say they will continue to recommend universal hepatitis B vaccination for newborns, despite a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decision from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to stop the long-term recommendation. That decision ─ made without evidence by committee members who were handpicked by Health and Human Services Department Director and vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ─ reversed three decades of public health policy. The American Academy of Pediatrics says it will work with other experts and organizations to publish independent vaccine recommendations based on data and evidence. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, two large health insurance industry groups, say parents will still be able to get the hepatitis B vaccine for their children for free, despite the new CDC recommendation. (MedPage Today article, 12/9/25)