RFK Jr.'s HHS Blasted As CDC Panel Considers Dropping Life-Saving Hepatitis B Vaccine For Newborns

* UPDATED: December 5, 2025

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), met Thursday for the first of two days of discussions about childhood vaccine schedules and recommendations.

The panel focused on the hepatitis B vaccine and plans to vote on Friday whether to continue recommending it be given to all children at birth or to recommend something entirely different. The panel previously tabled making a decision on infant and early childhood hep-B vaccination in September.

* On Friday, ACIP voted 8-3 to drop the recommendation of a universal birth dose for the Hepatitis B vaccine, shifting towards parental choice and provider consultation. The change should not, but could, affect health insurance coverage of the shots.

FactCheck.org called out ACIP for the "misleading information" used to justify the change.

The hep-B vaccine has been universally recommended for newborns in the United States since 1991.

Extensive, vetted, credible medical research shows hep-B infections among infants and children dropped 99% due to the existing vaccine protocol that MAGA Republican President Donald Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary, antivaxxer conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., wants to eliminate.

Hepatitis B is an incurable infection that once contracted, can lead to liver disease, cancer, and early death.

RFK Jr.—a former heroin addict who claims using the drug as a student improved his grades—vowed to his antivaxxer supporters he'd overhaul the children's vaccine schedule. He sang a different tune during his confirmation hearing when he acknowledged "people should not take medical advice" from him and that he'd vaccinate his own children.

Kennedy falsely believes—or claims to believe to the scientifically illiterate people he grifted millions of dollars from—an autism epidemic—that never existed—is caused by vaccines and vowed to find the cause by September of 2025—which he didn't. For people like Kennedy, a child with autism is worse than having a child die from a preventable disease.

But there is zero credible scientific or medical evidence to support his autism vaccination link claim and RFK Jr. has never produced any.

Despite this, Trump's HHS Secretary had the CDC website updated to claim there is a likely connection between vaccines and autism.

RFK Jr. has no training or education in public health, medicine, or the physical sciences.

Kennedy's campaign to reshape vaccination policy has drawn vocal opposition from epidemiology experts and representatives of the major credible medical groups.

Back in September, when the change to hep-B childhood vaccination was first discussed, pediatric infectious disease clinician Dr. Flor Muñoz told the panel:

"A question I've had all along through these discussions is why? Why are we addressing this hepatitis B vaccine recommendation? Is there really a reason?"

No verifiable medical reason has been provided for any of RFK Jr.'s changes that are now dominating HHS and CDC practices.

‪@drandrealove/Bluesky

Kennedy routinely defends his positions based on what he has or hasn't seen firsthand.

Kennedy has claimed autism and other childhood illnesses and disorders are an epidemic because he never saw neurodivergent, disabled, or chronically ill children when he was a child.

Kennedy was born in 1954. The Americans with Disabilities Act wasn't passed until 1990, which required a free, appropriate, public education in the least restrictive environment for all children with disabilities. Prior to that, disabled children were often either educated in separate, private institutions or not educated at all.

The last of the "Ugly Laws" was stricken in 1974, when Kennedy was 20 years old. Ugly Laws allowed police to arrest and jail people with visible disabilities for the crime of being seen in public.

It's highly likely RFK Jr. never did see disabled or neurodivergent children when he was a child, but not because they didn't exist. His inability, or unwillingness, to make such logical progressions instead of drawing false conclusions is part of why Kennedy is unfit to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy also infamously cut the head off a whale to bring it home, dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park, told the world a worm was found in his brain, and took his grandchildren swimming in sewage-contaminated water despite a U.S. National Park Service ban on entering or even touching the water. RFK Jr. also claims he can tell when children at airports are unhealthy just by looking at them.

The proposed changes to existing vaccine schedules run counter to hours of data presented by the CDC's own scientists throughout the ACIP meetings.

Prior to his confirmation, many in public health warned that Kennedy aimed to bring his antivaxx pseudoscience to HHS.

Once confirmed, Kennedy replaced all 17 members of ACIP with his own handpicked people. Most of his appointees have a history of using antivaxxer rhetoric and promoting disproven or wholly unsubstantiated science and medicine to support their beliefs—just like Kennedy.

After Thursday's ACIP meeting, the qualified, vetted health experts with Defend Public Health issued a statement expressing their shock at the "flood of antivaxxer disinformation" that dominated the proceedings.

Epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs of the Defend Public Health Coordinating Committee said:

"The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is no longer a legitimate scientific body. At their meeting today, the primary speakers were a climate scientist and an MBA who are immersed in anti-vaccination misinformation."

"When pressed for evidence to back up their vague but sinister claims alleging harm associated with hepatitis B vaccine, they were unable to do so."

Dr. Jacobs, professor emerita of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Nutritional Sciences at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and the University of Arizona Cancer Center, added:

"Secretary Kennedy claims that he wants to rid ACIP of conflicts of interest, yet he has organized a group that espouses and promotes anti-vaccination beliefs in the absence of facts."

"Tomorrow, the parade of conflicts of interest will continue with the appearance of an attorney who sues vaccine companies for a living and yet was given a speaking slot at a scientific meeting. He will likely present data from a discredited and unpublished study, as he has done in the past, because he doesn't have the knowledge, training or experience to understand its flaws."

@thebulwark/Bluesky

"At today's meeting, multiple speakers also attempted to re-stigmatize Hepatitis B infection by blaming US cases on 'illegal immigrants,' and tying the condition to men who have sex with men, women having multiple sex partners, immigrants, and urban residence. This is a disgraceful direction for a once scientifically-based committee."

Dr. Jacobs concluded her statement, saying:

"It is an epidemiological crime scene."

And just like the results of RFK Jr.'s work to eliminate childhood vaccinations for measles, if his latest change gets implemented by ACIP, more people will be permanently adversely affected or die from an almost entirely preventable disease.