US vaccine advisers say not all babies need a hepatitis B shot at birth

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal vaccine advisory committee voted on Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

A loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel, whose current members were all appointed by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a leading anti-vaccine activist before this year becoming the nation’s top health official.

“This is the group that can’t shoot straight,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups.

Several medical societies and state health departments said they would continue to recommend them. While people may have to check their policies, the trade group AHIP, formerly known as America’s Health Insurance Plans, said its members still will cover the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.

For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.

But Kennedy’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, and in cases where the mom wasn’t tested.

For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate. The committee voted 8-3 to suggest that when a family elects to wait, then the vaccination series should begin when the child is 2 months old.

The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jim O’Neill, is expected to decide later whether to accept the committee’s recommendation.

Asked why the newly-appointed committee moved quickly to reexamine the recommendation, committee member Vicky Pebsworth on Thursday cited “pressure from stakeholder groups,” without naming them.

Committee members said the risk of infection for most babies is very low and that earlier research that found the shots were safe for infants was inadequate.

They also worried that in many cases, doctors and nurses don’t have full conversations with parents about the pros and cons of the birth-dose vaccination.

The committee members voiced interest in hearing the input from public health and medical professionals, but chose to ignore the experts’ repeated pleas to leave the recommendations alone.

The committee gives advice to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors almost always adopted the committee’s recommendations, which were widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. But the agency currently has no director, leaving acting director O’Neill to decide.

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

Hepatitis B is a serious liver infection that, for most people, lasts less than six months. But for some, especially infants and children, it can become a long-lasting problem that can lead to liver failure, liver cancer and scarring called cirrhosis.

In adults, the virus is spread through sex or through sharing needles during injection drug use. But it can also be passed from an infected mother to a baby.

In 1991, the committee recommended an initial dose of hepatitis B vaccine at birth. Experts say quick immunization is crucial to prevent infection from taking root. And, indeed, cases in children have plummeted.

Still, several members of Kennedy’s committee voiced discomfort with vaccinating all newborns. They argued that past safety studies of the vaccine in newborns were limited and it’s possible that larger, long-term studies could uncover a problem with the birth dose.

But two members said they saw no documented evidence of harm from the birth doses and suggested concern was based on speculation.

Three panel members asked about the scientific basis for saying that the first dose could be delayed for two months for many babies.

“This is unconscionable,” said committee member Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, who repeatedly voiced opposition to the proposal during the sometimes-heated two-day meeting.

The committee’s chair, Dr. Kirk Milhoan, said two months was chosen as a point where infants had matured beyond the neonatal stage. Hibbeln countered that there was no data presented that two months is an appropriate cut-off.

Dr. Cody Meissner also questioned a second proposal — which passed 6-4 — that said parents consider talking to pediatricians about blood tests meant to measure whether hep B shots have created protective antibodies.

Such testing is not standard pediatric practice after vaccination. Proponents said it could be a new way to see if fewer shots are adequate.

A CDC hepatitis expert, Adam Langer, said results could vary from child to child and would be an erratic way to assess if fewer doses work. He also noted there’s no good evidence that three shots pose harm to kids.

Meissner attacked the proposal, saying the language “is kind of making things up.”

Health experts have noted Kennedy’s hand-picked committee is focused on the pros and cons of shots for the individual getting vaccinated, and has turned away from seeing vaccinations as a way to stop the spread of preventable diseases among the public.

The second proposal “is right at the center of this paradox,” said committee member Dr. Robert Malone.

Some observers criticized the meeting, noting recent changes in how they are conducted. CDC scientists no longer present vaccine safety and effectiveness data to the committee. Instead, people who have been prominent voices in anti-vaccine circles were given those slots.

The committee “is no longer a legitimate scientific body,” said Elizabeth Jacobs, a member of Defend Public Health, an advocacy group of researchers and others that has opposed Trump administration health policies. She described the meeting this week as “an epidemiological crime scene.”

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a liver doctor who chairs the Senate health committee, called the committee’s vote on the hepatitis B vaccine “a mistake."

“This makes America sicker," he said, in a post on social media.

The committee heard a 90-minute presentation from Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has worked with Kennedy on vaccine litigation. He ended by saying that he believes there should no ACIP vaccine recommendations at all.

In a lengthy response, Meissner said, “What you have said is a terrible, terrible distortion of all the facts." He ended by saying Siri should not have been invited.

The meeting’s organizers said they invited Siri as well as a few vaccine researchers — who have been vocal defenders of immunizations — to discuss the vaccine schedule. They named two: Dr. Peter Hotez, who said he declined, and Dr. Paul Offit, who said he didn't remember being asked but would have declined anyway.

Hotez, of the Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, declined to present before the group “because ACIP appears to have shifted its mission away from science and evidence-based medicine,” he said in an email to The Associated Press.

AP writers Ali Swenson in New York, Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, and Lauran Neergaard in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

Dr. Robert Malone chairs a meeting of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices votes to recommend changes to the infant hepatitis B vaccination policy during a meeting in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets in Atlanta on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025 to consider changes in hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for infants. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)

FILE - U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Western Governors' Association meeting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble, File)

FILE - Committee member Vicky Pebsworth, speaks during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the CDC, Sept. 18, 2025, in Chamblee, Ga. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — All around the globe, eyes focused Friday on the stage where World Cup paths were sorted, nation's names chosen one by one in a draw that determined Argentina and Lionel Messi will start their title defense against Algeria and the U.S. will open against Paraguay.

Twenty-seven months after qualifying began, teams from five-time champion Brazil to newcomers Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan and Uzbekistan learned their group-stage opponents in the expanded 48-nation, 104-game tournament that starts June 11 in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“Exciting for the island, for the people there. They’re so proud,” said Dick Advocaat, the 78-year-old Dutchman leading Curaçao, a Caribbean country with a population of 150,000, into an opener against four-time champion Germany.

On a day that began with snow falling on the nation's capital, the ceremony at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts included U.S. President Donald Trump receiving a newly created peace prize awarded by FIFA, soccer's governing body. Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney picked up plastic spheres containing their own nations' names from bowls — Sheinbaum drew more applause from those gathered in the hall than Trump.

FIFA's lead-in show, featuring music and stars from sports and entertainment, was almost as long as a 90-minute soccer match, with the actual draw starting nearly 1 1/2 hours into the proceedings. Tom Brady, Shaquille O’Neal, Aaron Judge and Wayne Gretzky took part. New Zealand was the last orb picked.

“Just watching Americans on stage and the president giving speeches and performances, it made it feel like an American event already,” said U.S. midfielder Tyler Adams, who watched from England, where he plays for Premier League club Bournemouth. “And I think we know the expectation of what it’s going to be like when we go there and there’s going to be halftime shows and there’s going to be celebrities and the big draw of what America brings to sports.”

Three-time champion Argentina opens on June 16 at either Kansas City, Missouri, or Santa Clara, California. Specific sites for all group stage games and kickoff times were to be announced Saturday. The Albiceleste then face Austria and Jordan in Group J. Argentina surprisingly lost its 2022 opener to Saudi Arabia before going on to win the final over France on penalty kicks.

Messi, who turns 39 during the tournament, hasn't committed yet to playing but it would be shocking if he decided against appearing in a record sixth World Cup.

“We are just awaiting for him to decide," coach Lionel Scaloni said. “In principle, everything is going well.”

The U.S., which reached the semifinals at the inaugural World Cup in 1930 and the quarterfinals in 2002, starts Group D against Paraguay on June 12 in Inglewood, California. The Americans play Australia six days later at Seattle, then face Turkey, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo — one will emerge next year from playoffs — on June 25 back at SoFi Stadium.

The Americans had friendlies against Turkey in June, Australia in October and Paraguay last month.

“We know them but they know us,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said.

Brimming with confidence, he defined success as: “Win the World Cup.”

Mexico hosts the tournament opener at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City on June 11 against South Africa in Group A, a rematch of the 1-1 draw at the 2010 opener in Johannesburg. El Tri then meets South Korea and closes the first round against the Czech Republic, Ireland, Denmark or North Macedonia.

Forty-two of the teams have been determined; 22 are competing in playoffs for six berths that will be decided March 31.

Winners and second-place nations from the 12 groups advance to the new round of 32 along with the top eight third-place teams. All games from the quarterfinals on will be in the U.S., culminating in the July 19 final at East Rutherford, New Jersey.

England, which won its only title in 1966, plays Croatia, Ghana and Panama in Group L. Players from Chelsea and Manchester City experienced summer U.S. conditions at this year's Club World Cup.

“It doesn’t make it any easier when it comes again to blame the heat and fight against humidity and altitude and different time zones,” England manager Thomas Tuchel said. “It’s just what it is. We have to find a way to dig in. We have to find a way to accept it and build a high tolerance to all these obstacles.”

Five-time champion Brazil opens against 2022 semifinalist Morocco, then plays Haiti and Scotland in Group C.

“It is a difficult group,” coach Carlo Ancelotti said.

Top-ranked Spain, the 2010 champion, faces Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay in Group H, while four-time champion Germany follows its Curaçao match by playing Ivory Coast and Ecuador in Group E.

“It is always difficult to play as a European team against a South American team,” Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann said.

Two-time champion France starts June 16 against Senegal at East Rutherford, New Jersey, or Foxborough, Massachusetts. With Les Bleus coming off their first world title, they lost 1-0 to the Lions of Teranga in the 2002 opener at Seoul, South Korea. France then faces Bolivia, Iraq or Suriname in Group I and closes perhaps the most daunting group against Norway in a matchup of Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland,

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, like Messi expected to play in a record sixth World Cup, has Group K matches against Uzbekistan, Colombia and Congo, Jamaica or New Caledonia. If Portugal and Argentina win their groups, Ronaldo and Messi could meet in a quarterfinal at Arrowhead Stadium.

Other groups include:

G: Belgium, Egypt, Iran, New Zealand.

B: Canada, Switzerland, Qatar and Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wales or Northern Ireland.

F: Netherlands, Japan, Tunisia and Sweden, Ukraine, Albania and Poland.

“Without knowing who the third opponent is, it can get difficult — specifically if Italy advances,” Canada coach Jesse Marsch said.

No team has repeated as champion since Brazil won in 1958 and ’62, and only eight nations have won soccer’s biggest prize. Italy has four titles and Uruguay two.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino gave Trump a large gold-colored peace prize trophy and a gold-colored medal hanging from a blue ribbon, which Trump hung around his neck. Standing next to Trump, Infantino lavished praise.

“This is truly one of the great honors of my life,” Trump said.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Former NBA player Shaquille O'Neal, actor Kevin Hart and former NFL player Tom Brady attend the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Former NFL player Tom Brady holds up the team name of Argentina during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino hold up country names during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

President Donald Trump smiles after drawing USA's name from a pot during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Dan Mullan/Pool Photo via AP)

President Donald Trump, left, speaks as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, center, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, right, stand on stage during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney holds their countries' name during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

President Donald Trump speaks after being presented with the FIFA Peace Prize by FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, Pool)

Model Heidi Klum waves as she arrives on the red carpet for a welcome reception ahead of the draw for 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

FIFA President Gianni Infantino and his wife Leena Al Ashqar pose for a photo as they arrive for a welcome reception ahead of the draw for 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

People arrive for the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

Curacao's coach Dick Advocaat, 2nd left, arrives to attend the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

People arrive for the draw for the 2026 soccer World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)