WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy said on Friday that a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts made the right decision to postpone a vote on delaying the administration of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Friday tabled a vote on the recommendation to wait until infants reach 1 month of age, rather than at birth, to administer the vaccine unless the mother tests positive for the virus.
“President Trump and I agree: vaccines save lives. If a mom wants to get a lifesaving hepatitis B vaccine to protect her newborn, she should be able to get it,” Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in a post on X.
“The proposed ACIP recommendation could have put that access at risk, making it harder for that mom or that parent to protect their child against hepatitis B. Postponing the vote was the right call,” he said.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein, Editing by Franklin Paul)
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