MedPage Today on Wednesday ran the latest in a series of mainstream articles defending the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine as safe, effective and necessary for every newborn baby born in the U.S.
The articles are in response to concerns recently raised by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., chair of the vaccine advisory committee for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
At his first meeting in June, Kulldorff announced that the panel may revisit its longstanding recommendation that the vaccine be given to all babies at birth.
MedPage said Kulldorff and Kennedy’s assertions “could erode public confidence in a vaccine credited with virtually eliminating childhood transmission of the virus in the U.S.”
Critics have long raised concerns about the safety and necessity of giving the vaccine to newborns, particularly those not at risk for the disease. Today, the Hep B vaccine contains at least 250 micrograms of aluminum, and aluminum exposure has been linked to autism.
Hepatitis B is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV). It can range from a mild, short-term, acute illness lasting a few weeks to a serious, long-term, chronic infection.
The virus is transmitted through bodily fluids, most often by sexual contact or sharing IV drug equipment. In the U.S., IV drug use is the most common risk factor for the disease, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Infected pregnant mothers can pass the disease to their infants. In the U.S., an estimated 25,000 pregnant women per year — or 0.69% — have HBV. About 1,000 of those women pass the virus to their babies, according to HHS.
Women can be tested for the disease to see if their babies would benefit from vaccination, but that’s not what the CDC recommends.
Instead, children are required to receive the Hep B vaccine to attend either childcare, school or both, in every state except Alabama.
Dr. Kristen Marks, an infectious disease specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told MedPage the Hep B vaccine is “a safe vaccine that prevents liver disease and liver cancer.” It “makes no sense” to question the use of such a drug, she said.
However, the vaccine does not prevent cancer. It is designed to prevent HBV, which can lead to liver cancer in some people if the disease goes untreated. Yet “almost all children 6 years and older and adults infected with acute HBV recover completely with no lasting liver damage,” according to the CDC.
An Aug. 14 analysis of a clinical trial and immunological data by James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., also raises doubts about whether the dose given to newborns is effective. Instead, immunity appears to be conferred after the entire series of shots.
That, combined with substantial evidence of the vaccine’s dangers, has raised concerns about the existing recommendation.
Hep B vaccine, other mandatory shots not reviewed in more than 7 years
At the June meeting of the CDC’s revamped Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Kulldorff asked:
“Is it wise to administer a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine to every newborn before leaving the hospital? That’s the question. Unless the mother is hepatitis B positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection, which is primarily spread by sexual activity and intravenous drug use.”
Kulldorff, a former Harvard epidemiologist tapped by Kennedy to lead ACIP, announced the committee was forming two new work groups. One group would look at the cumulative effect of the childhood and adolescent vaccination schedules, and another would look at vaccines that have not been reviewed “in more than seven years.”
The latter group includes the Hep B shot.
MedPage said Kulldorff’s claim about how HBV is spread was “inaccurate,” because in “highly endemic areas, hepatitis B is most commonly spread from mother to child at birth.”
However, HBV is not endemic in the U.S. Its prevalence is estimated at 0.6%, and the public health agencies say IV drug users are at greatest risk.
Articles in MedPage and other mainstream publications also cited a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, where Kennedy claimed “without evidence” that suppressed CDC data linked the vaccine to autism, with one study showing a “1,135% elevated risk of autism.”
MedPage asked HHS for the study cited by Kennedy, but received no response. It concluded there was no “credible evidence” that the study existed. MedPage also quoted Chari Cohen, who said she had never seen such a study and didn’t know anyone who had.
The risk percentage can be found in a series of studies the CDC completed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, which the group Safe Minds obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The studies, which examined the relationship between thimerosal and autism in the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink, found a strong link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and medications — including HBV treatments — and autism.
One of those analyses identified a 1,135% elevated risk of autism — or an 11.35 times greater risk — for infants exposed to high levels of thimerosal.
The researchers repeated the study multiple times, manipulating the groups they included and changing the way they analyzed the data in an attempt to water down the results.
Lead investigator Thomas Verstraeten, in an email to his colleagues with the subject line “it just won’t go away,” said he was having trouble eliminating evidence of harm within the first month of a baby’s life.
With each new iteration of the study, the risks shown were reduced or eliminated. Eventually, the researchers achieved results that were published in Pediatrics, and used to claim there was no link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism.
The documents obtained by Safe Minds provide “strong support for the autism-mercury hypothesis,” along with evidence of how data can be manipulated, according to the group.
“The pattern of behavior constitutes malfeasance and should not be permitted to stand,” they wrote. “It is time to remove the parties involved from their role in vaccine safety assessment and to subject the VSD database to open and independent review.”
Why did the Hep B vaccine get added to the childhood schedule?
In an article published in the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, and Ethics, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) CEO Mary Holland questioned the constitutionality of requiring children to receive the Hep B vaccine for school attendance, especially since CDC data show transmission is unlikely through routine contact among children.
The CDC’s position on mass vaccination for children changed after the pharmaceutical companies got legal protection from liability.
When ACIP made its first Hep B vaccine recommendation in 1982, the CDC recognized that the U.S. had “low HBV prevalence” and recommended the shot for high-risk people only, including healthcare workers, people likely to be in sexual or “needle stick” contact with an infected person and infants born to infected mothers.
In 1988, the committee called for all pregnant mothers to be screened to determine if vaccination was necessary. At that time, it was estimated that 16,500 mothers per year were infected and, without vaccination, an estimated 3,500 infants would become chronic carriers.
Later that year, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, was established. The law protects vaccine makers from liability for injuries related to vaccines on the CDC’s childhood schedule.
The VICP was intended to provide an alternative means of compensating people who suffer “accidental injury or death” from taking those vaccines.
By 1991, the CDC was describing HBV risks differently, saying the consequences of infection were “major health problems” in the U.S. — even though rates had not changed and only a few hundred children were infected.
The CDC advisory committee concluded that because it was challenging to vaccinate only people at risk for HBV, mass immunization against the virus was “the most effective means of preventing HBV infection and its consequences.”
The committee recommended that all infants be vaccinated, regardless of their mothers’ HBV status, and the Hep B vaccine was added to the childhood immunization schedule.
Related articles in The Defender
- Hep B Vaccines Come With High Risk, Little Benefit — Why Does CDC Recommend Them for Every Newborn?
- Safety Data on Hepatitis B Vaccine for Newborns ‘Sadly Lacking’
- Judge Rules in Favor of Teen in Medical Exemption Lawsuit Funded by Children’s Health Defense
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