December 5, 2025 - As the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) prepares to vote on a proposal to end the universal hepatitis B birth dose, the California Medical Association (CMA) is calling on the committee to uphold a policy that has prevented thousands of infections and saved countless lives. CMA President René Bravo, M.D., issued the following statement ahead of tomorrow’s vote.

Related: KFF Health News: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wants To Delay the Hepatitis B Vaccine. Here’s What Parents Need To Know.

“As a California pediatrician and as president of the California Medical Association, I urge ACIP to reaffirm—not retreat from—the universal hepatitis B birth-dose recommendation. For more than three decades, this policy has safeguarded infants with a simple, reliable, and evidence-based intervention delivered at birth. Before universal newborn vaccination began in 1991, nearly 18,000 children were infected with hepatitis B each year, half during childbirth. Since then, we’ve seen a 99% reduction in childhood infections because the vaccine is safe, effective, and reaches every newborn—including those at risk due to missed or delayed maternal screening.

A remark in today’s hearing suggested that the risk of hepatitis B is lower for the ‘average’ American child after showing data showing increased risk among Asian American communities. Chronic hepatitis B disproportionately affects Asian American and Pacific Island, Black and immigrant communities – and every child deserves protection.

Abandoning this protection now, without any new evidence to justify doing so, would expose infants to a lifelong, preventable disease and undermine the public’s trust in sound science and public-health decision-making. I strongly encourage ACIP to stand with the physicians, families, and decades of data that have made this one of our most successful childhood-disease prevention policies.”

Source: California Medical Association