1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

Prior to the adoption of a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine, an estimated 90% of babies infected in infancy become chronically infected, which can lead to liver disease and premature death from liver cancer or cirrhosis. The birth dose was adopted in 1981 to try to prevent as many babies as possible from contracting the virus. It worked. Infections in infants plummeted, going from hundreds a year to fewer than two dozen. A modeling study posted online in November 2025 estimates that delaying the start of hepatitis B vaccination by two months could lead to more than 1,400 babies becoming chronically infected with hepatitis B in the first year of the change, which could result in 304 cases of liver cancer and 482 hepatitis B-related deaths among those children as they age. The two-day meeting of ACIP last week was disgraceful. Our children deserve better. More than 60 falsehoods, distortions, and outright lies were propagated by one of the nation’s highest committees. The potential damage from that alone is staggering. During the meeting, decades of favorable risk/benefit priorities were replaced by pseudoscience, baseless skepticism, and by non-experts. Killing our children is unforgivable. That will be Robert Kennedy’s legacy. Impeach Kennedy now.