TARGETING SCIENCE
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On Friday morning, after contentious discussion, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8-3 to drop the recommendation for a universal birth hepatitis B vaccine dose and 6-4 to suggest that parents use serologic testing—which detects antibodies in the blood—to determine whether more than one dose of the three-dose series are needed.
Under the first recommendation, only infants born to mothers who test positive for hepatitis B would receive a birth dose, while parents of other babies would be advised to postpone the first dose for at least two months.
