STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A powerful federal committee is trying again today to change how children get vaccinated against infectious diseases. The panel was supposed to vote on those changes yesterday, and they did not, as the meeting descended into chaos and confusion instead. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein joins us. Rob, good morning.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: This would be a fun story, but lives are at stake. So what happened?
STEIN: Exactly. Well, you know, as you said, it turned into quite a spectacle. The meeting lasted all day, but participants repeatedly interrupted and talked over each other, sometimes even snapping curtly in frustration. Let's listen to one exchange. At the end of the day, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln was talking about how the committee was evaluating the science. But then he got into it with Dr. Robert Malone, who was chairing the meeting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSEPH HIBBELN: If we don't have a scientific framework, they are susceptible to opinions...
ROBERT MALONE: And we have heard...
HIBBELN: ...Or disruptions.
MALONE: We have heard your comments.
HIBBELN: So...
MALONE: And please understand...
HIBBELN: Excuse me.
MALONE: ...That there...
HIBBELN: Excuse me.
MALONE: ...That there is...
HIBBELN: Please do not interrupt me.
MALONE: ...A process in place.
HIBBELN: Please do not interrupt me.
STEIN: And, you know, Steve, that kind of typified how the day went.
INSKEEP: Would you just remind us what it was the committee was supposed to be deciding?
STEIN: Yeah. Yeah. This committee - it's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. It's considering changing the way children get vaccinated against hepatitis B, dropping a recommendation that all kids get the shot within 24 hours of being born. This protects them from getting chronically infected with hepatitis B and getting liver disease, liver failure and maybe even liver cancer later in life. And it's been very successful. Hepatitis B infections have plummeted in the U.S. since universal routine vaccination began.
INSKEEP: And we heard a doctor on the program yesterday who was arguing that getting that vaccination right at the beginning, right at birth, is really important. So...
STEIN: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...Why would the committee even consider changing that?
STEIN: Well, this committee was hand-picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned many vaccines. And some members of this committee argued that there's insufficient evidence that giving all newborns the hepatitis B vaccine when they're so young is necessary and safe. After several hours of presentations and sometimes heated debate, the committee seemed poised to recommend dropping that universal recommendation and replacing it with a recommendation that only babies whose mothers test positive for the hepatitis B virus or whose status is unknown always get the shot at birth. That's a change most public health experts say would be a terrible mistake.
But just as the committee was getting close to voting, the chairman suddenly announced that they would vote on three questions instead of two. And he didn't even have a slide he could put up so committee members could see exactly how they were answering some pretty complicated questions. So more frustration and confusion ensued. Here's Dr. Hibbeln again.
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HIBBELN: Trying to evaluate a moving target, and we don't even have a slide explicitly describing what questions we're supposed to answer.
STEIN: And the majority of the committee agreed that they didn't really understand what they were voting on, so they voted to postpone a decision.
INSKEEP: Until today?
STEIN: That's right. The committee's going to try once again, after clarifying the exact language of the recommendations. And then they'll turn to other possible big changes to the rest of the childhood vaccine schedule, which have protected kids against measles, whooping cough and polio and more than a dozen other dangerous infections for decades.
INSKEEP: NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. Thanks.
STEIN: You bet, Steve. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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