Dem
47
GOP
53
On Friday, Secretary of HHS Robert Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked panel of vaccine skeptics came through for him. It voted to get rid of the recommendation for all newborns to get the hepatitis B vaccine. This decision overturns decades of practice where all babies got the shot, which reduced liver disease enormously and saved thousands of lives. For mothers who have tested positive, the baby can get the vaccine. The vote was 8-3, with the minority arguing that the data show no reason to change the policy, which has been in place since 1991. The vaccination worked extremely well in preventing liver disease, with few side effects. Hep B infections dropped from 9.6 per 100,000 children before 1991 to 1.0 per 100,000 now. But when you are dealing with anti-vaxxers, data are not relevant. In the Internet we trust.
The decision does not forbid parents from having their babies vaccinated by their doctor, but health insurance will probably not cover the vaccination anymore now that it is not recommended. This decision is part of Kennedy's MASA plan—Make America Sick Again.
Public health experts decried the decision, as did the American Medical Association. The AMA's Sandra Adamson Fryhofer called the decision "reckless" and said it "undermines decades of public confidence in a proven, lifesaving vaccine." But what do doctors know about health? They are too busy vaccinating babies to keep up with the latest conspiracy theories on the Internet. Maybe they will have more time now.
Donald Trump cheered on the decision. On his extremely sick social network, he wrote that the panel "made a very good decision to END their Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendation for babies, the vast majority of whom are at NO RISK of Hepatitis B." No doubt the anti-vaxxers in his base are applauding his deep and abiding concern about public health. Trump also encouraged Kennedy to look at what other countries recommend. Some countries do not have as aggressive a vaccination schedule as the U.S. does, and he is probably thinking of those.
But there is more. The Centers for Disease Control just updated its webpage on autism to include the statement: "The claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism." This is an out-and-out lie. There have been dozens of studies that have shown no connection between vaccines and autism. The only "support" for the claim that vaccines cause autism was a single paper by then-Dr. Andrew Wakefield in The Lancet in 1998, falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism. Subsequent investigation showed that Wakefield had committed fraud and stood to earn over $40 million per year selling test kits. The journal retracted the paper and Wakefield's medical license was revoked. Entire books have been written about Wakefield's fraud. (V)