RFK Jr.s lunatic war on vaccines puts kids at risk

Health Secretary Robert F.Kennedy Jr.

is still chipping away at one of the biggest public-health wins of the last century: the widespread use of disease-eradicating vaccines.On Dec.5, his handpicked Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices tossed the recommendation for universal hepatitis B vaccines for infants at birth, instead advising it only for babies whose mothers tested positive for the disease — and recommending that babies who don’t get the jab at birth don’t receive it earlier than two months.But .

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why?The hep B vaccine has a stellar safety record, and relying on testing is a bad plan; it’s usually done in the first trimester or during birth, but can go wrong in plenty of ways — like moms being exposed post-test, or not getting tested at all.Universal at-birth vaccination is a low-risk, very effective strategy for preventing a disease that has a 90% chance of becoming a chronic, liver-damaging, possibly deadly illness for babies who get infected.Sorry: Who wants more kids with hep B? There’s zero reason for the ACIP to change recommendations, except to further RFK’s obsessive agenda to reduce the number of vaccines for tots — based on his feverish belief that the jabs are dangerous.

The White House is, at the very least, giving him a long leash to carry out his anti-vax campaign.The same day as the ACIP’s hepatitis B decision, President Donald Trump signed a memo directing a review of the vaccine schedules of “peer, developed countries,” noting that places like Denmark, Germany and Japan recommend fewer early childhood vaccines than the United States.But that’s because Japan, Germany and Denmark are smaller countries with entirely different health-care systems and disease risks.By the way, the rate of chickenpox in Denmark — frequently praised by anti-vaxxers for its sparse vaccine schedule — is sky-high compared to the United States.It’s all part and parcel of RFK Jr.’s dangerous and plain dumb war on vaccines....