The babies who will become infected as a result of this vote — and some will die prematurely of liver disease — will overwhelmingly be those born to marginalized, underserved families. This is a profound failure of evidence-based public health and a big step backwards. 2/2

And thanks so much to Collins and Murkowski too for all those expressions of concern, and then voting to confirm him anyway.

If you're reading this, chances are you care a lot about vaccine recommendations, so I'm going to offer this gentle reminder to prioritize your mental health.

The major issue with this meeting is that it's a massive platform to disseminate lies about vaccines rather than policy consequences.

I’ve totally and unabashedly done it. Especially if on PT and logging on at 4:45 am—I mean, isn’t that the proper attire?

Exactly—if done this way, the vaccines would be doomed to be more mismatched and less effective by the time the FDA authorized them for use.

3/ W/o intervention, ~85% of infants born to infected mothers become infected, 90% of whom develop chronic HBV (vs <5% of adults).

1 in 4 children with HBV die prematurely from cirrhosis or liver cancer

Annual treatment for chronic HBV = $25-$325k

Prevention is key
www.cdc.gov/acip/downloa...

4/ The birth dose is recommended w/in 24 hours because early initiation is critically important.

Palau: infants vaccinated > 3 days after birth had a 6.7% infection rate. Those vaccinated w/in 3 days had 0.6%.

Micronesia: 2.6% vs 0.

The birth dose alone reduces transmission by ~75%.

Link seems broken?