Liz SzaboTracy Hoeg: Voting to stop universally vaccinating newborns against hep B vaccine would "put us in line with peer countries."
Note: Which peer countries is she talking about? Taiwan began immunizing all babies on first day of life 6 years before the U.S., with huge success.
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Tracy Hoeg of the FDA questioned why we should give a baby a blood test before vaccinating them. Says that we don't have a confirmed correlate of protection.
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Andrew Johnson of CMS says the proposed voting language would not prevent babies who get federally provided insurance from being covered with no out of pocket costs.
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Meissner. The recommendation is that after a series of 3 doses, if a person who has a blood level of this amount, that person is reliably protected against hep B. There has not been a documented case of anyone developing hep B if you achieve this titer.
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Meissner: We know antibodies will decline over time but there will be an immune response to a booster in someone who responded and is otherwise healthy. #ACIP
Meissner: "The fact that hepatitis has not occured in someone who has received the Hep B series is about the best proof you're going to get that the vaccine is effective."
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Milhoan: Says he was taught in medical school in 1992 that we vaccinate infants against hep B to provide herd immunity.
Note: Doctors tell me that is not true. They say we are trying to save that baby's life and prevent liver cancer, cirrhosis and liver transplants.
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Meissner responds to Milhoan. I think we are confusing what we know and what we don't know. A titer of 10 million internationall units within 3 mos after the 3rd dose is sufficient. But is that same titer after a single dose sufficient?
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Meissner responds to Milhoan's questions.
"The harm is not giving three doses. The harm is not giving three doses as prescribed."
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Adam Langer from the CDC's hepatitis center:
25% of infants who receive 1st dose have protective titer.
But we would be making a really huge assumption that one dose that just happened to get the baby's titer up above 10 is lifetime protective.
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