The following is an announcement from The Vaccine Integrity Project.
The Vaccine Integrity Project is conducting an independent review of the scientific evidence supporting the long-standing recommendation for universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in children occurs primarily through maternal-infant transmission during pregnancy, labor, or delivery. In the absence of vaccine protection, roughly 90% of infants infected perinatally develop chronic HBV infection, and about one in four of those will die prematurely from chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, or liver cancer. Since the early 1990s, routine universal vaccination of all newborns at birth has served as a critical safety net to prevent missed opportunities for protection – such as when mothers arrive late to prenatal care or are not tested for HBV, test results are missing or incorrect, or infection occurs after prenatal screening. After early attempts to vaccinate only “high-risk” infants failed in the 1980s, the CDC, ACIP, and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) adopted a universal birth dose policy in 1991. It has been a target of anti-vaccine activists since then, while simultaneously demonstrating remarkable protection for children. Following decades of research confirming the vaccine’s safety, effectiveness, and population-level benefit, ACIP voted to strengthen its recommendation in 2016 that all medically stable infants receive the HepB vaccine within 24 hours of birth. Since the universal birth dose policy was introduced, HBV infections in the United States have declined by 95%.
The team will synthesize decades of data on the safety, effectiveness, and public health impact of administering the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth for medically stable newborns. The review will draw upon ACIP’s prior Evidence-to-Recommendation (EtR) analyses, CDC surveillance data, published epidemiologic studies, systematic reviews, and reports from professional medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. Data from other countries will be examined for context, though, the analysis will focus on the U.S. experience and policy framework.
This review builds on the Vaccine Integrity Project’s recent work analyzing published safety and effectiveness data for influenza, COVID-19, and RSV immunizations, which was published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. That analysis underscored the value of independent, transparent scientific review of immunization data, which is accessible here.