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‘Babies are at risk’: Health reporter breaks down CDC panel’s new Hepatitis B vaccine rules

By WTOP Staff

The health community is in an uproar following a Friday vote by a federal vaccine committee ending a decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B.

The Centers for Disease Control committee was handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who generally opposes vaccines.

“This is a defining moment for public health in this country. It is for the first time that we can no longer count on our federal agencies to provide us scientifically sound information,” Michael Osterholm, a public health expert at the University of Minnesota, said after the announcement.

“Whatever we hear from this group has to be discounted.”

Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for the New York Times, joined WTOP’s Ralph Fox on Saturday to go deeper into the decision.

Read and listen to the interview below.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.

Indonesia arrests former nutrition agency head and officials in corruption investigation

By The Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s recently dismissed head of the National Nutrition Agency was arrested on Wednesday on corruption charges related to a multi-billion-dollar free-meals program. The program delivered on a campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto and aimed to fight malnutrition by feeding nearly 90 million children and pregnant women. But it has come under steep criticism due to high costs and cases of food poisoning among schoolchildren who consumed the meals. Prabowo fired Dadan Hindayana on Tuesday and replaced him with the agency's deputy chief. Investigators searched the agency’s offices early Wednesday. Before Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office made Wednesday’s arrest announcement, Hindaya could be seen being led out in handcuffs, wearing a detainee red vest and a black shirt, and escorted into a green prison van.
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