What the Trump administration's hepatitis B vaccine rollback means for California

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

For most American infants, the hepatitis B shot comes just before their first bath, in the blur of pokes, prods and pictures that attend a 21st century hospital delivery.But as of this week, thousands of newborns across the U.S.

will no longer receive the initial inoculation for hepatitis B — the first in a litany of childhood vaccinations and the top defense against one of the world’s deadliest cancers.On Dec.

5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s powerful vaccine advisory panel voted to nix the decades-old birth-dose recommendation.The change was pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.and his “Make America Healthy Again” movement, which has long sought to rewrite the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule and unwind state immunization requirements for kindergarten.

California officials have vowed to keep the state’s current guidelines in place, but the federal changes could threaten vaccine coverage by some insurers and public benefits programs, along with broader reverberations.“It’s a gateway,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist in Los Angeles.

“It’s not just hepatitis B — it’s chipping away at the entire schedule.” Science & Medicine A CDC advisory panel voted Friday to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, potentially putting the preventative measure out of reach for millions of poor families.Democratic-led states and blue-chip insurance companies have scrambled to shore up access.California joined Hawaii, Oregon and Washington in forming the West Coast Health Alliance to maintain uniform public policy on vaccines in the face of official “mis- and dis-information.” “Universal hepatitis B vaccinations at birth save lives, and walking away from this science is reckless,” California Gov.

Gavin Newsom said in a statement.“The Trump administra...