CDC Makes It Official, Drops Hep B Shot Recommendation For Newborns
Babies whose mothers test positive for the virus, or whose status is unknown, should still get the birth dose, the CDC says, but others may delay the first shot until the child is at least 2 months old. However, doctors and hospital systems are likely to continue following the decades-old policy.
NBC News:
CDC Formally Stops Recommending Hepatitis B Vaccines For All Newborns
Instead of recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now officially advises women who test negative for the virus to consult health care providers about whether their babies should get their first doses within 24 hours of birth. (Bendix, 12/16)
Stat:
New Hepatitis B Vaccine Guidelines Seem Likely To Be Ignored
The Trump administration on Tuesday adopted its vaccine advisory committee’s recommendation to end the decades-old policy that every newborn be offered a hepatitis B shot, despite an outcry from health experts that the decision ignored key evidence around the shots. (Payne, 12/16)
KFF Health News:
Listen To The Latest 'KFF Health News Minute'
Sam Whitehead reads the week’s news: To get food benefits, more people now have to prove they’re working, and doctors say all newborns benefit from a hepatitis B shot, despite changing federal guidelines. (12/16)
Related news from Illinois, which issues its own vaccine guidelines —
Chicago Tribune:
State Committee Recommends Hepatitis B Vaccines For Newborns
Illinois should continue to recommend that nearly all newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B, a state advisory committee decided Tuesday, in a move that could represent another break with federal vaccine guidance. (Schencker, 12/16)
Other news about covid, measles, Lyme disease, and listeria —
CIDRAP:
Presenteeism Among Health Workers With COVID Rose Steadily Last Year, Study Suggests
Nearly 8% of US health care personnel (HCP) with symptomatic COVID-19 continued to work during their illness, and the practice became increasingly common as the pandemic progressed, suggests a new observational cohort study published in JAMA Network Open. (Bergeson, 12/16)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
China Sues Missouri, Demands Apology For COVID Judgment
Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said Tuesday that China, in its own country, is suing Missouri in the wake of a $24 billion American court judgment the state obtained in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. (Schlinkmann, 12/16)
AP:
School Attendance Plummeted During Texas Measles Outbreak
When a measles outbreak hit West Texas earlier this year, school absences surged to levels far beyond the number of children who likely became sick, according to a study, as students were excluded or kept home by their families to minimize the spread of the disease. Absences in Seminole Independent School District, a school system that served students at the heart of the outbreak, climbed 41% across all grade levels compared with the same period the two previous years, according to the Stanford University study. (Seminera and Shastri, 12/17)
MedPage Today:
Lyme Disease Did Not Come From A Secret Military Lab, Contrary To FDA Chief’s Claim
Claims that Lyme disease was developed as a military bioweapon and escaped from a government lab are flatly contradicted by decades of scientific evidence -- despite what federal regulators have claimed recently, experts say. (McCreary, 12/16)
CIDRAP:
2 Salad-Linked Listeria Outbreaks Show Need For Routine Surveillance
Two genetically unrelated US outbreaks of Listeria monocytogenes infections linked to packaged salads from two different firms caused 30 illnesses, 27 hospitalizations, and four deaths over eight years, according to a new report by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers and collaborators published in Emerging Infectious Diseases recently. (Soucheray, 12/16)
