RFK Jr.’s appointees to the ACIP recommended withdrawing universal newborn Hepatitis B vaccination, a move that alarmed infectious-disease experts. Universal vaccination since 1991 has coincided with a roughly 99% drop in pediatric Hepatitis B cases; the birth dose protects infants from mother-to-child and household transmission. Kennedy has also narrowed COVID and measles guidance, cut mRNA vaccine funding, and pursued research into alleged vaccine–autism links despite extensive evidence to the contrary. A recent Lancet study underscores that vaccines have saved millions of lives and brought massive economic benefits, while warning that misinformation threatens those gains.
Opinion: RFK Jr. Has Turned the CDC Into “A Zombie Organization” — And What That Means for Public Health
On Dec. 5, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — whose members were all appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — recommended that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withdraw its long-standing policy of giving a Hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns and instead limit birth-dose vaccination to infants born to mothers known to be infected. The committee argued that because Hepatitis B is primarily sexually transmitted, most newborns do not require protection at birth.
The recommendation alarmed infectious-disease experts and public-health physicians.
Universal newborn Hepatitis B vaccination, introduced in 1991, has been followed by a roughly 99% drop in infections among children and adolescents — infections that can lead to chronic liver disease, liver failure and death. Serious adverse reactions to the Hepatitis B vaccine are exceedingly rare. Meanwhile, about 70% of people living with Hepatitis B in the U.S. are unaware they are infected, and about 14% of pregnant women are not tested for the virus before delivery.
Hepatitis B is not only transmitted sexually; it also spreads through shared personal items such as toothbrushes, towels and combs and via microscopic traces of blood on surfaces. Before the 1991 universal program, roughly half of pediatric cases were linked to transmission from infected mothers — the very risk the birth dose helps mitigate.
The ACIP provided no new peer-reviewed studies to justify reversing decades of policy. It is notable as well that Secretary Kennedy has publicly alleged — without credible evidence — that the CDC concealed or manipulated data to hide links between Hepatitis B vaccines and autism.
“…effectively we’re denying vaccines,” declared Sen. Bill Cassidy in September after saying Kennedy had promised to work within the existing vaccine safety system. Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, has said the agency has been reduced to “a zombie organization.”
Since taking office, Kennedy has taken a series of actions that critics say weaken routine immunization programs: opposing vaccine mandates during a measles outbreak in Texas despite the need for roughly 95% coverage to maintain herd immunity; narrowing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations to seniors and people with underlying conditions; removing combination MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccines as an option for children under four; ending a rule that tied certain federal hospital reimbursements to employee vaccination rates; and replacing ACIP members appointed by his predecessors.
He also cut about $500 million from mRNA vaccine development funds while asserting — again without evidence — that these vaccines fail to protect against upper respiratory infections. The Department of Health and Human Services under his leadership has awarded no-bid contracts to research alleged links between vaccination and autism, despite at least 25 large studies finding no such connection. He additionally placed an asterisk on the CDC website sentence that reads, “vaccines do not cause autism,” saying he could not remove it without violating an agreement, while also suggesting that the statement is not strictly evidence-based.
The stakes are global. A comprehensive study published this year in The Lancet concluded that vaccines are safe, cost-effective and have saved an estimated 154 million lives worldwide since 1974, 95% of them children under five. The authors project that routine immunizations will prevent 508 million illnesses among Americans born between 1994 and 2023 over their lifetimes, avert 32 million hospitalizations and save roughly 1 million lives — including an estimated 90,000 deaths from Hepatitis B — and generate approximately $540 billion in direct healthcare savings and $2.7 trillion in broader societal benefits.
The Lancet authors warned that misinformation and disinformation threaten the enormous public-health gains achieved by vaccination programs. That warning predates Kennedy’s tenure and the recent changes at HHS and CDC, and it came well before this month’s measles outbreak in South Carolina, in which most infected children had not been vaccinated.
This is, at its core, a debate about evidence and risk. Removing or narrowing longstanding vaccine recommendations without strong, transparent evidence risks reversing decades of progress against preventable disease. Policymakers should weigh those risks carefully — and the public deserves clear, evidence-based explanations for any major changes to national immunization policy.
Glenn C. Altschuler is The Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
