CDC About To Kill Lifesaving Hep B Vaccine For Newborns, Puritan Idiots Rejoice
No one is accusing your baby of being a slutty junkie.
In 1991, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a mandate requiring that all newborn babies receive the hepatitis B vaccine, reversing a prior recommendation to only give it to newborns at high risk of infection. Before that mandate, there were approximately 18,000 cases of hepatitis B in children under the age of ten — 9,000 of whom contracted it from their mothers at birth.
This was a bad thing.
Ninety percent of those newborns who contracted hep B at birth would also end up with chronic conditions that lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer.
This was also a bad thing.
However, a whole lot of people are very excited for a return to that, including those on the CDC vaccine advisory board in charge of issuing vaccine-related recommendations. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is preparing to vote on the hepatitis B vaccine recommendation and — given that it is now chock full of “vaccine skeptics” — it is highly likely that they will rescind it.
This is a bad thing.
There is no cure for hepatitis B. It’s also not always the case that there are symptoms, so kids that contract hepatitis B may very well end up spreading it to their friends, not through having sex or sharing needles, but through a million other possible childhood accidents like cuts and scrapes or forgotten toothbrushes at sleepover parties. Then, when they are older, they could spread it to their sexual partners if they’ve still never been tested.
Via Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia:
In the U.S., about 1 in 2 people with chronic hepatitis B infections do not know they have this infection. They don’t have symptoms, and if they were exposed as children, they may be carriers able to unwittingly spread the virus throughout life. Given that their blood is highly contagious and the virus can remain on surfaces or items for up to a week, chronically infected people provide a way for hepatitis B virus to hide in plain sight. Before routine vaccination, 9,000 children innocently got infected each year — that’s 9,000 reasons why hepatitis B vaccine recommendations are designed to protect children as early in life as possible.
The hepatitis B vaccine is an especially easy target for anti-vaxxers, as there is already a built-in animosity towards anything that prevents health problems believed to be largely caused by “bad behavior.” There are still people out there who think that HIV and AIDS are God’s righteous punishment on those who have sex, gay people in particular. You may recall the hysteria over the HPV vaccine, and those who didn’t want their daughters to get it, for fear they would run out and have sex (because there are no other possible consequences to that!), or that it would imply that they were not saving themselves for marriage. There are even those who are mad about naloxone because they think we should just let people who are dying of overdoses die and decrease the surplus addict population, or that it somehow makes people more likely to take drugs that could contain fentanyl because people aren’t scared enough of dying.
So, in addition to the usual anti-vaccine hysteria, you’ve got thousands of people on social media talking about how newborn babies don’t need the vaccine unless they are having sex or shooting up, and so giving them this vaccine is tantamount to inferring that they either are slutty junkie babies or that they should be slutty junkies. Just what the libs want, huh!
Except, again, the problem isn’t that slutty junkie babies are going around having unprotected sex or doing heroin, it is that they contract hepatitis B from their mothers, who may not know they are infected. Technically, all pregnant people are supposed to be tested for hepatitis B, but we live in the United States of America, not some silly European country where everyone has access to healthcare and prenatal care. In fact, 25 percent don’t get prenatal care in their first trimester, and the numbers of those not getting any prenatal care at all are increasing.
Not to mention the fact that they could also contract hepatitis after they are tested.
Of course, this does not bother newly minted ACIP member Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who thinks it’s enough to just recommend the vaccine to those babies whose mothers are most at risk of having hepatitis B (you know, like back when 9,000 babies a year were born with it).
Via NBC:
Milhoan said any decision to give newborns hepatitis B vaccines should be made based on clinicians’ individual assessments of the babies’ risk for infection — that is, whether a pregnant woman tests positive for the infection or has a “questionable infectious disease background.” At September’s ACIP meeting, the panel voted unanimously to recommend testing all pregnant women for hepatitis B.
But not all pregnant women receive prenatal care, and if they do, not all feel comfortable speaking frankly with their doctors.
Milhoan appeared to dismiss the argument that women may not divulge activities that could increase their risk for hepatitis B because of stigma.
“I hope they love their baby more than they love their pride,” he said.
And if they don’t, it’s the baby that should be punished? With an incurable disease?
To be fair, there is a risk of anaphylaxis with the hepatitis vaccine — a one in 600,000 or one in 900,000 risk, depending on the study — and it is, of course, possible to die from that. However, it’s also entirely treatable.
One study found that, from January 1, 1991, through October 5, 1998, there were 1,771 neonatal events that were reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Savvy readers know that is not a reliable source of information, as literally any bad thing that happens after a vaccine (including a car accident!) can be listed as an “adverse event” after the fact. The vast majority of these were fevers and injection site reactions. Eighteen were deaths.
Does that mean the hepatitis vaccine caused 18 deaths? Nope. The causes of death were entirely unrelated: SIDS, other infections, intracerebral hemorrhage, accidental suffocation, and congenital heart disease. Call me crazy but I doubt that the vaccine grew legs, somehow exited the child and held a pillow over its face.
We do, however, know that not giving newborns the hepatitis vaccine will cause both death and lifelong chronic problems.
Granted, if ACIP rescinds its recommendation, people will still be able to get the vaccine for their newborn babies, but — as has been the issue with the COVID vaccine — that can affect whether or not insurers will cover it. It will also mean that idiots who don’t want those smug doctors inferring that their precious newborns are slutty junkie babies, or who think vaccines cause autism, will not get their children vaccinated, and we will end up with a large population of hepatitis-carrying-and-spreading “own the libs” babies.
What could possibly go wrong?
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
Slutty Junkie Babies is the name of my Velvet Underground tribute band.
EDIT: I realize now this seems a bit flippant and uncaring. I do not mean to trivialize what Brainworms is doing, it's horrific. But if I don't laugh, I'll cry. Or worse. I now return you to your regular Wonkette.
I got Hepatitis C from needle drug experimentation and didn't know it for 20 years like most infected people. An ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure.
I'll take science over superstition any day.