CDC advisers meet to vote on hepatitis B vaccine practice and discuss childhood immunization schedule
CNN
Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meeting today on what could be a major change to the childhood vaccination schedule. Follow here for live updates.
• Today’s meeting: Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meeting again today to discuss what could be a major change to the childhood vaccination schedule. • On the schedule: The panel is expected to vote on dramatic changes to hepatitis B vaccination practice in the US in the morning. Later, the discussion will turn to the vaccine schedule, according to an updated agenda. • About the panel: The members of the committee were handpicked by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, after he abruptly fired the 17 sitting members this year. After two delays of a potentially seismic vote to remove the universal recommendation for a newborn dose of the lifesaving hepatitis B vaccine, debate continued among CDC vaccine advisory committee members Friday morning over what to vote on. “I consider that this fourth iteration of votes in 96 hours is still incredibly problematic,” said ACIP member Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, who’d protested the voting language chaos Thursday as well. The committee delayed Thursday’s scheduled vote on the vaccine to Friday morning, after another delay from its September meeting.
