For decades, it’s been standard practice in the U.S. to administer a hepatitis B vaccine to newborns. The dose is typically given within 24 hours of birth. The vaccine protects babies whose mothers carry the virus; Even though those babies are exposed during birth and vaccinated shortly after, the vaccine is still effective.

As RFK Jr.'s new vaccine panel ponders changing the hepatitis B vaccination schedule, some doctors recall past patients, including children, who died painful deaths before there was a vaccine.

The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, with members appointed by RFK Jr., voted to change longstanding recommendations on the hepatitis B vaccine.

A panel of US vaccine advisers voted to rescind a recommendation that all newborns should receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth.

The federal vaccine advisory panel, all appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., voted to drop the universal recommendation that children should get vaccinated for hepatitis B at birth. William Brangham discussed this and other changes under consideration for vaccines with pediatrician Dr.

Hepatitis doesn’t always announce itself. While hepatitis A often comes on abruptly, as with a bad stomach bug, most cases of hepatitis B and C are asymptomatic at first. Alcohol-related hepatitis and MASH tend to be quiet until the later stages, too.

In a controversial move, the vaccine advisory group reversed a recommendations for universal immunizing of newborns intended to protect them from a virus that attacks the liver.

In significant move so far, the newly appointed US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisers voted Friday to abandon universal hepatitis B vaccination for newborns, a massive shift in US immunization policy that experts say will lead to increased illness.

Until Friday, the shot had been recommended for every infant shortly after birth since 1991. Parents should still have access.