New Jersey health officials are rejecting new federal guidance that would allow parents to delay the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, a decision made after a 8–3 vote by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also known as ACIP.
Within hours of the vote last week, the state Department of Health issued an executive directive preserving New Jersey’s requirement that infants receive the vaccine within 24 hours of delivery.
State officials say delaying the birth dose would undermine efforts that have reduced hepatitis B infections in children by 99% since universal newborn vaccination began in 1991.
Dr. Su Wang, medical director of viral hepatitis programs at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center and a former fellow in the epidemic intelligence service for the CDC, testified at the meeting. Wang, who both treats hepatitis B patients and lives with the disease herself, called the committee’s recommendation “very disappointing and honestly very upsetting.”
“We haven’t had any new alarming data,” Wang said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “This came out of nowhere. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what so many of us have gone through, living with the lifelong risks of liver cancer, cirrhosis, and the constant fear of spreading it.”
Wang described hepatitis B as “extremely contagious,” more infectious than HIV and easily transmitted through microscopic traces of blood – something parents often don’t consider when infants are cared for by relatives, daycare providers or others who may not know their hepatitis B status.
The universal birth dose, she said, protects infants for life and has shielded an entire generation from the virus. Rolling it back, she warned, “doesn’t make sense” and risks undoing decades of progress.
If other states follow ACIP’s recommendation, Wang fears a nationwide resurgence.
“Viruses don’t care about state borders,” said Wang. “When fewer people are vaccinated, more people will become infected.”
She also pushed back against claims that infants receive “too many vaccines,” calling vaccination “a sign of progress.” Data shows that giving the hepatitis B shot within 24 hours is far more effective than administering it days or weeks later. Without the birth dose, she said, the U.S. could see an estimated 1,400 new infections each year.
Wang emphasized that parents have always had the option to decline vaccines, what’s at stake now is maintaining a public-health safeguard that has worked for more than 30 years.
“We were doing a great job,” she said. “This is not the time to take our foot off the gas.”
