RFK's Kook-Filled Vaccine Advisory Board Clearly Has No Idea What It's Doing

They can't even figure out if babies should be immunized against Hep B or not.

The brand new and startlingly unqualified Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted Thursday against recommending the MMRV vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (chickenpox), for children until age four, suggesting that children under four should only get the MMR vaccine and then get a separate chickenpox vaccine.

Their reasoning for this is that some studies show a very slightly elevated risk for febrile seizures — which can happen any time an infant gets a fever — for the combined vaccine as opposed to the two separate vaccines. Febrile seizures are rare to begin with and generally treatable with ibuprofen and other fever-reducers.

However, they also voted that participants in the Vaccines for Children program for low-income families could decide whether they want the MMR vaccine and a separate chickenpox vaccine or the MMRV vaccine … and then reversed that vote at their meeting this morning.

This may seem like something that’s not a big deal, but the fact that they are making any changes at all to the recommendations for older, established vaccines is not a great sign. There’s a reason the MMRV exists, and that is because the fewer separate vaccines a child has to get, the more likely they are to actually get them and to get them on time. That’s pretty important because it can impact their overall effectiveness.

Effectiveness matters, because do you know what also causes febrile seizures? Chickenpox. Which, by the way, is much more dangerous for an infant than a five-year-old. It is also much more dangerous than getting a febrile seizure from a vaccine.

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They also voted this morning in favor of recommending that mothers get tested for Hepatitis B (HBV), but decided to wait on whether or not to recommend the vaccine for newborn infants, as has been the recommendation of the CDC since 1991.

“I think there is going to be some debate as to whether any evidence at all was presented for what's being recommended,” said Dr. Robert W. Malone, the lunatic anti-COVID vaccine guy who claimed to have personally “invented” mRNA vaccines, when in fact he was just one researcher among many. “I believe that there's enough ambiguity here and enough remaining discussion about safety, effectiveness and timing that I believe that a vote today is premature.”

Except it’s not ambiguous at all. There is a reason why so many doctors and experts more qualified and less kooky than Dr. Malone have long recommended that infants get vaccinated against HBV almost as soon as they are born. Is it because those doctors think that their mothers are hussies or IV drug users? Is it because the doctors think the babies are going to go out and have unprotected sex within the first few weeks or months of life? It is not!

There are myriad ways one can contract HBV other than through sexual contact or IV drug use. It can also be transferred through blood and other bodily fluids and it can survive for seven days outside of the body. That means that if you have a cut on your hand and you touch something that someone with HBV bled on, you could contract it yourself. A mother could do this after getting tested, which is why a test alone is not enough to ensure the child is protected. Babies born to mothers who have the virus have a 90 percent chance of being okay if they get the vaccine after birth and then again two months later.

Most people do not know they have HBV until it is too late to do anything. There is no cure for it, and although most infections go away on their own, there is the possibility of it becoming a chronic condition. This is far more likely for infants who are infected. An infant who contracts HBV will likely have it, and some serious health problems, liver problems in particular, for the rest of their life.

Let’s check out some stats, courtesy of The Conversation:

Before the United States began vaccinating all infants at birth with the hepatitis B vaccine in 1991, around 18,000 children every year contracted the virus before their 10th birthday – about half of them at birth. About 90% of that subset developed a chronic infection.

In the U.S., 1 in 4 children chronically infected with hepatitis B will die prematurely from cirrhosis or liver cancer.

Today, fewer than 1,000 U.S. children or adolescents contract the virus every year – a 95% drop. Fewer than 20 babies are reported infected at birth.

But hey! It’s also fun to do hot takes about how babies aren’t having sex and doing drugs!

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This is why we need qualified people to advise the CDC on vaccines, not weird ideologues who think something like this is “ambiguous.”

There is some good news, though! States are starting to create their own vaccine standards and recommendations in order to protect their citizens in this time of CDC batshittery. Oregon, Washington, California, and Hawaii have formed the West Coast Health Alliance, and just this week issued their own COVID and flu vaccine recommendations. Yesterday, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and New York City announced the formation of the East Coast Health Alliance, which will be doing the same thing. The state of Illinois will also be issuing its own recommendations, as per an executive order from Gov. JB Pritzker. Perhaps we can even team up with Minnesota at some point and form our own alliance?

It’s annoying that any state actually has to do this, but at least it’s something.

PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!

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