RFK Jr ready to make major changes to when children get vaccines including delaying shots for newborns: report

RFK Jr ready to make major changes to when children get vaccines including delaying shots for newborns: report

Rhian Lubin

Tue, December 2, 2025 at 3:40 PM UTC

3 min read

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An advisory panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is reportedly preparing to recommend significant changes to vaccination schedules, including potentially delaying the hepatitis B shot given to newborns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory panel is scheduled to discuss and then vote on the hepatitis B vaccine dose recommendation during a two-day meeting beginning Dec. 4, according to a meeting agenda and a report by the health policy organization KFF.

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, fired the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

The committee’s decisions are not legally binding, but experts warned any misinformation from this week’s meeting could lead parents to believe the hepatitis B vaccine is harmful to babies.

Hepatitis B is highly contagious and can cause severe liver damage. The disease is transmitted through blood and bodily fluids, and a vaccine dose has been recommended for newborns since 1991.

An advisory panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. is reportedly preparing to recommend major changes to when children receive vaccines (Getty Images)

If babies receive the dose within 24 hours of birth, the vaccine is 90 percent effective, and if they receive all three doses, 98 percent develop immunity that lasts for decades.

And if left untreated, the incurable disease can lead to liver failure and liver cancer in more severe cases.

“Whatever comes out of this disaster of a meeting in December is going to be mainly designed around sowing distrust and spreading fear,” Sean O’Leary, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told KFF.

Kennedy has falsely claimed that giving newborns a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine was a “likely culprit” of autism when he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s podcast in June.

In September, Trump falsely claimed that hepatitis B is primarily a sexually transmitted disease during a White House press conference.

“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B. So I would say wait till the baby is 12 years old and formed and take hepatitis B,” the president said, as he advocated for delaying a dose of the vaccine at birth.

President Donald Trump falsely claimed that hepatitis B is primarily a sexually transmitted disease during a White House press conference in September (AFP via Getty Images)

Experts were alarmed and urged parents to talk to their doctors if they are unsure.

William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told KFF that some parents may not understand why a healthy baby would need a vaccine shot so soon after birth.

Even if a pregnant woman tested negative, “it’s still important to give the baby the birth dose, because false negatives are possible and because the virus can spread so easily from surface contact,” Schaffner told the health organization.

Delaying the vaccine could have severe consequences, he warned.

“If you wait a month and if the mom happens to be positive, or the baby picks it up from a caregiver, by that time the infection is established in that baby’s liver,” Schaffner added. “It’s too late to prevent that infection.”

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