Study finds Kennedy vaccine plan could raise hepatitis B infections 83%
Why it matters: Delaying or individualizing newborn shots could leave more than half of US children susceptible by adulthood.
A new study found that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s proposed changes to newborn hepatitis B vaccination could sharply increase infections in the United States. Researchers modeled the effect on the roughly 3.6 million infants born in a year and estimated that moving the first shot from birth to 2 months would raise chronic infections acquired by age 20 by 19%, from 255 to 303 cases annually. A shared decision-making approach would push that increase to 83%, or 467 cases a year, and leave more than half of children vulnerable to infection as adults. The study, led by Amir Mohareb of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, was published in Annals of Internal Medicine. A federal judge temporarily blocked the policy in March, but the lawsuit is ongoing.