Friday’s 8-3 vote by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), to change the CDC’s longstanding recommendation that all American infants be vaccinated against hepatitis B shortly after birth, is profoundly disappointing, not based on a coherent framework of scientific evidence, and has the potential to have devastating consequences.
Hepatitis B is a highly communicable disease, and the notion that we can reliably identify all hep B-positive mothers is risky. Newborns have limited immunity, making them susceptible to infectious illness, and hep B can transmit with contact from bodily fluids (including saliva) from an infected person even in very small amounts. Harms of hep B include liver failure, cirrhosis and cancer, and in some cases death.
Aligned with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Public Health (DPH), Dartmouth Health and Dartmouth Health Children’s will continue to counsel patients to vaccinate babies at birth, as it is proven to be safe and in the best interest of the health of the baby, and the public at large.
About Dartmouth Health
Dartmouth Health, New Hampshire’s only academic health system and largest private employer, serves patients across New England. Dartmouth Health provides access to more than 2,300 providers in nearly every area of medicine, delivering care at its flagship hospital, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) in Lebanon, NH. Its network of hospitals, outpatient centers, clinics and home care facilities, spans a broad geographical area. Year after year, DHMC is named the #1 hospital in New Hampshire by U.S. News & World Report, and is consistently recognized for high performance in numerous clinical specialties and procedures. Dartmouth Health includes Dartmouth Cancer Center, northern New England’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of less than than 60 total nationally; Dartmouth Health Children’s, which includes the state’s only children’s hospital, the Golisano Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Health, and more than 20 locations around the region; eight member hospitals in Lebanon, Keene, Claremont, Hampstead, and New London, NH, and Windsor and Bennington, VT; Dartmouth Health Home Care; Dartmouth Health Connected Care Center for Telehealth, serving patients as far away as Texas; and more than 30 primary and multi-specialty clinics across New Hampshire and Vermont. Through its partnership with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine and the White River Junction VA Medical Center, Dartmouth Health trains nearly 400 medical residents and fellows annually and performs cutting-edge research and clinical trials with international impact. Dartmouth Health and its more than 16,000 employees are committed to serving the healthcare needs of everyone in the communities it serves and to providing every patient with exceptional, state-of-the-art, personalized care. Learn more at dartmouth-health.org.
About Dartmouth Health Children's
Dartmouth Health Children’s is the most comprehensive pediatric healthcare system in the region and the first integrative medicine children’s health system in the country. Dartmouth Health Children’s is fully integrated in Dartmouth Health and anchored in Lebanon, NH, by Dartmouth Health’s Golisano Children’s Hospital (also a member of the nationwide Golisano Children’s Alliance): home of the highest acuity neonatal intensive care unit and only pediatric intensive care unit in New Hampshire, along with the only adolescent medical-psychiatry unit in northern New England. Through a unique partnership with the state of New Hampshire at Hampstead Hospital, Dartmouth Health Children’s also provides the state’s only inpatient psychiatric care for children and adolescents. Dartmouth Health Children’s advances knowledge through groundbreaking research and education as the primary pediatric partner of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and delivers the best patient- and family-centered care for infants, children, and adolescents in a range of settings across New Hampshire and Vermont. Outpatient specialty visits and same-day surgery services are available at Dartmouth Hitchcock Clinics in Manchester, NH, with pediatric primary care at nearly every Dartmouth Health member location.