CDC hepatitis B vaccine vote delayed: What parents should know about possible changes
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is seen during a meeting on September 19, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee on Friday indefinitely postponed its planned vote on whether to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, called ACIP, is expected to vote on the COVID-19 vaccine is still expected later Friday. It’s not clear exactly what the advisors will vote on, but the discussion may include the FDA’s recent narrowing of COVID-19 vaccine approvals to a smaller group of Americans — those over 65 or with underlying medical conditions.
A “yes” vote on the hepatitis B vaccine would have recommended that the first dose be delayed from birth and given at one month of life for babies born to moms who test negative in pregnancy.
Robert Malone, a panel member and vaccine critic, proposed tabling the vote out of concern that there had not been enough discussion about the safety of the hepatitis B vaccines.
Cody Meissner, a fellow panel member, argued that trying to “prove the absence of harm” is “simply not a practical objective.”
Presentations on Thursday by the CDC included data about the chances of side effects from the vaccine. For hepatitis B, the advisors are considering removing a universal recommendation for a shot in the hours after a baby is born, and instead only giving the shot if the mother tests positive for the infection during her pregnancy.
The birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for all babies ensures that all have the opportunity to get protected from a highly contagious virus that can cause lifelong chronic disease. A CDC recommendation isn’t a mandate but can eliminate barriers — like cost — for families so they don’t need to factor that into their choice for a shot or not.
Pediatrician medical groups argue delaying this birth dose until one month of life would leave the opportunity for babies to be missed if they are born to a mother infected with the virus or from a close contact soon after birth. It also may be difficult to guess who is at risk and should be tested — half of people living with Hepatitis B don’t know they are infected, according to the CDC.
When the U.S. had a risk-based approach to vaccination before 1991, it was estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 new hepatitis B infections occurred annually in the U.S. from 1980 to 1991 and over 1 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B infection, according to the CDC.
However, hepatitis B is still a huge problem among adults in the U.S. It’s estimated that up to 2.4 million people in the country are living with chronic hepatitis B, with many being asymptomatic and unaware of their diagnosis, according to the CDC.
Dr. Lisa Gwynn says Florida’s vaccine decision will create ‘perfect storm’ for diseases. ABC News.
(FLORIDA) — A top Florida pediatrician warned Thursday that the state’s plan to eliminate all vaccine mandates could lead to outbreaks of preventable diseases and put vulnerable populations at risk.
Dr. Lisa Gwynn, a former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Florida chapter, told ABC News that removing vaccine requirements for public school children could endanger not just students, but also “newborn infants, elderly populations, and people with compromised immune systems, including those undergoing chemotherapy.”
The warning came a day after Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced the state would become the first in the nation to remove all vaccine mandates, including those for common childhood diseases like polio, measles, chickenpox, and tetanus. Currently, all 50 states and Washington, D.C., require certain vaccinations for school attendance.
“It’s not just about parental choice,” Gwynn explained to ABC News. “When children are in close contact in classrooms, that’s a perfect storm for these types of diseases to spread.”
Gwynn argued that existing exemption policies already provide options for parents who oppose vaccination.
“There are other ways parents can achieve choice for their children,” she said. “As pediatricians, we work together with parents so they can make informed decisions.”
She also raised concerns about health equity, noting that removing mandates could create a “case of the haves and have-nots.” Children from under-resourced communities who lack access to regular medical care might enter school unvaccinated not by choice, but due to healthcare barriers, she explained.
School entry vaccination mandates are determined by each state. All states allow medical vaccine exemptions, and most states already have exemption policies in place for people with strong religious objections, in an effort to balance the need for public health with the ideal of individual freedom of choice. Some states allow exemption based on personal belief alone.
Florida’s decision to end vaccine mandates comes amid broader changes in national health policy. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday to discuss the administration’s healthcare agenda, following recent shake-ups at both the FDA and CDC.
“These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency with the central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease,” Kennedy said.
Ladapo defended the decision to end mandates on Wednesday, calling them “an immoral intrusion on people’s rights” during his announcement at Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida.
Gwynn countered this view, pointing to decades of research supporting vaccination programs.
“Public health measures have saved millions of lives,” she told ABC News. “School vaccination requirements have been the best public health achievement of this century.”
A spokesperson for the Florida Surgeon General’s Office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a cabinet meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House on August 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — More than 1,000 current and former employees across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) signed a letter on Wednesday morning calling for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s resignation.
Addressed to Kennedy and members of Congress, the signatories accused the secretary of endangering the health of Americans. Save HHS, the group behind the letter, told ABC News it’s been sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as Majority and Minority leadership.
“We swore an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and to serve the American people. Our oath requires us to speak out when the Constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk,” the letter reads, in part.
It continues, “Thus, we warn the President, Congress, and the Public that Secretary Kennedy’s actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy’s resignation.”
In a statement to ABC News, HHS communications director Andrew Nixon said the CDC “has been broken for a long time” and it will take “sustained reform and more personnel changes” to restore trust in the institution.
“From his first day in office, [Kennedy] pledged to check his assumptions at the door — and he asked every HHS colleague to do the same,” the statement read, in part. “That commitment to evidence-based science is why, in just seven months, he and the HHS team have accomplished more than any health secretary in history in the fight to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
Employees from almost every agency signed the letter, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. The letter states the employees did so in their personal capacity, on their personal time and without the use of government equipment.
In the letter, HHS employees said Kennedy continues “to endanger the nation’s health” with examples such as the ousting of newly-installed CDC director Susan Monarez, followed by the resignations of four top CDC leaders.
The letter also referenced an interview Kennedy gave to Scripps News last month in which he said trusting experts “is not a feature of either a science or democracy,” which staffers referred to as “ongoing verbal attacks” of the HHS workforce.
Employees also expressed dismay over Kennedy’s June move to remove all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) — which makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines — and replaced them with eight of his own hand-selected members, many of whom have expressed vaccine-skeptic views.
The letter calls out two new members by name, Dr. Robert Malone and Retsef Levi.
Malone — who made some early contributions to mRNA vaccine technology — discussed an unfounded theory, disputed by experts, on a podcast during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming people were “hypnotized” into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, such as vaccination.
Meanwhile, Levi previously said in a post on X that there was “indisputable evidence” that mRNA vaccines cause “serious harm including death, especially among young people,” a claim that has not held up in dozens of research studies.
The letter calls on Trump and Congress to appoint a new health secretary if Kennedy refuses to resign.
“We expect those in leadership to act when the health of Americans is at stake,” the letter states. “We ask other partner organizations to join us in our call for Secretary Kennedy’s resignation and stand in solidarity with those who have already.”
The employees said the petition is in response to a letter sent last month to Kennedy — signed by more than 750 current and former staffers — beseeching him to “stop spreading inaccurate health information.”
Staffers stated the deadly shooting that occurred at the Atlanta headquarters of the CDC on Aug. 8 was “not random” and was driven by “politicized rhetoric.”
The earlier letter called on Kennedy to take a number of actions by Tuesday, Sept. 2, including not spreading inaccurate health information, affirming the scientific integrity of the CDC and guaranteeing the safety of the HHS workforce.
The new letter comes just two days after nine former directors and acting directors of CDC published an op-ed in The New York Times, also accusing Kennedy of endangering the health of Americans.
Additionally, on Tuesday, Kennedy published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, saying the CDC has “squandered public trust” and that Trump has asked him to “restore that trust and return the CDC to its core mission.”
Alyssa Pointer for The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), made up of members recently hand-selected by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., voted 5-1 on Thursday to recommend against flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal.
A few moments before, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee voted 6-0 to recommend all Americans aged 6 months and older receive an annual influenza vaccine.
One committee member, Vicky Pebsworth, abstained on each vote.
Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative, which is used to prevent microbial contamination of vaccines. Most flu vaccines currently used in the United States contain little to no thimerosal, but both the Food and Drug Administration and the CDC say there is no evidence low doses of thimerosal in vaccines cause harm other than minor reactions at the injection site, such as redness or swelling.
Additionally, a 2010 CDC study found exposure to vaccines and immunoglobulins that contain thimerosal, in prenatal or infant stages, does not increase risk for autism spectrum disorder.
This preservative was previously used in some common childhood immunizations, However, in the late 1990s, federal health agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics and vaccine manufacturers agreed to reduce or eliminate thimerosal in vaccines as a precautionary measure, which public health experts previously told ABC News gave rise to anti-vaccine groups alleging thimerosal is not safe and fueled speculation that mercury causes autism.
Kennedy, who has promoted vaccine-skeptic views that experts and decades of robust research have refuted, wrote a book in 2014 falsely claiming thimerosal is “toxic to brain tissue” and may cause autism, calling for its removal from all vaccines.
During the ACIP meeting, Lyn Redwood, a former president of Children’s Health Defense, a group that used to be chaired by Kennedy, gave a highly charged presentation as a private citizen. She claimed the preservative was toxic to the brain and refuted evidence-based claims that there has been no proven harm from thimerosal in vaccines.
Her presentation received pushback from ACIP member Dr. Cody Meissner, who was the only member to vote against the recommendation. He said there “is no scientific evidence that thimerosal has caused problems.”
“The risk for influenza is so much greater than the non-existing risk from thimerosal,” he added.
Meissner said vaccines with thimerosal are metabolized as ethylmercury, not methylmercury, which is the form of mercury found in fish and shellfish, and is known to be a neurotoxin.
“I’m not quite sure how to respond to this presentation,” he said. “This is an old issue that has been addressed in the past. Ethylmercury is excreted much more quickly from the body. It is not associated with the high neurotoxicity that methylmercury [is].”
Meissner also added that thimerosal is included in most multi-dose vaccines administered around the world because single-dose vials are more expensive, and removing thimerosal could increase the costs of vaccines.
“Thimerosal is included in most vaccines that are administered around the globe, and that is because single-dose vials are more expensive, and many countries cannot afford a single-dose vial,” Meissner said.
He went on, “I realize ACIP is focused on the United States, but the recommendations that the ACIP makes are followed among many countries around the world and removing thimerosal from all vaccines that are used in other countries, for example, is going to reduce access to these vaccines, it will increase cost.”
Multiple liaisons of medical groups in the committee also questioned in the meeting why Redwood was permitted to present given her limited scientific background and pushed back on the lack of peer-reviewed studies in her presentation.
“This committee has always prided itself on openness, transparency and data and evidence. So I am wondering if we will have an actual scientific presentation with peer-reviewed literature, strong evidence to actually discuss this issue, as many statements have been made here today, without support of science or evidence, but merely opinion,” Dr. Jason Goldman, a liaison for the American College of Physicians (ACP), said in the meeting.
A CDC review of evidence on thimerosal was previously published on the agency’s website — showing no safety risks from the ingredient — but was later taken down. A former CDC official posted a copy of the article online.
“A scientifically rigorous CDC report reviewing the safety of thimerosal was posted for public access and then abruptly removed at the direction of the Office of the Secretary. The removal of this document, which contextualized decades of evidence showing no link between thimerosal and neurotoxicity or autism, raises serious concerns about transparency and the integrity of the decision-making process,” Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases, said in a statement to ABC News.
Doctors have voiced concern that no longer recommending thimerosal in some flu shots could lead to less people getting vaccinated and fuel further distrust of vaccines.
“Any decrease in the number of flu vaccines available will likely result in fewer people being vaccinated and subsequently more hospitalizations and deaths. Its removal could also signal to the general public unwarranted safety concerns,” O’Leary said.
Another heated exchange in the meeting came during the discussion of flu vaccines when ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone described the 250 flu deaths among children during the most recent flu season as a “modest number.”
“The 250 pediatric deaths, which is, let’s acknowledge, is a modest number fortunately,” Malone said.
This past season saw the highest number of flu deaths among children for a non-pandemic season, and the highest number seen since the 2009 H1N1 global flu pandemic, CDC data shows.
Malone received immediate push back during the meeting. Goldman from ACP said the number of deaths “is not a small number, especially if it’s your own child dying from the vaccine preventable illness.”
