Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s influential vaccine advisory panel on Thursday delayed a vote for a second time on whether to change the timing of the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns.
The advisory panel remade by Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, was scheduled to change the current recommendation that infants get the first of three hepatitis B vaccine doses within 24 hours of birth, alarming health experts who say there's no evidence for the adjustments.
But during a contentious and confusing meeting on Thursday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members debated the wording of three questions they planned to vote on. In a 6-3 vote, the committee agreed to delay the hepatitis B vaccine vote until Friday to allow members time to study the wording of the questions.
When the committee met in September, it also tabled a vote that would've recommended the first vaccine dose be delayed at least one month after birth for babies who are born to mothers who test negative for hepatitis B.
At one point during Thursday's meetings, a member said the wording of the questions had been changed three times within 24 hours.
