Source: American Academy of Family Physicians
The American Academy of Family Physicians strongly supports maintaining universal Hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccination at birth, and it calls on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ensure this life-saving protection remains the standard of care.
The benefits of protecting every newborn from Hep B far outweigh the risks. Before routine vaccination at birth, 18,000 U.S. children contracted Hep B each year by age 10. This debilitating illness is not confined to high-risk groups—it can spread through something as small as a cut or an item with trace amounts of blood.