Does Your Newborn Need the Hepatitis B Vaccine?
GamingHepatitis B is a liver disease caused by a virus with the same name. The infection may be acute or chronic, and symptoms may include fever, malaise, fatigue, jaundice, abdominal tenderness, and elevated liver enzymes. While a person can be quite ill with this infection, treatment is supportive and aimed at providing comfort. The vast majority of patients recover within eight weeks from an acute episode of infection without long-term complications.
Parents are told that hepatitis B is a life-threatening disease. What they are not told is the real risk serious complications of the disease and that it is very unlikely that your child will contract hepatitis b.
The virus is spread by coming into contact with the blood of an infected person. The vast majority of hepatitis B infections occur in people considered to be in “high-risk groups.” These groups include adults who inject illicit drugs or are chronic alcoholics; people who have been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease; and men who have sex with men. Only 1.25 percent of infected people can develop liver cancer 30 years after being diagnosed as chronic carriers. (1) Despite the low incidence of cancer, the hepatitis B vaccine has been called the first “cancer vaccine.” Taking into account the risk factors for those who contract hepatitis B, it could well be alcohol or drugs that cause cancer, not the virus.
The number of reported cases of acute hepatitis b infection has steadily declined, from 18,003 cases in 1991 to 8,036 cases in 2000. (2) Of all people who are exposed to the hepatitis b virus, 50 percent will not develop symptoms and 30 percent will develop only mild flu-like symptoms. In both circumstances, the person will acquire lifelong immunity to the virus.
About 20 percent of people who get hepatitis B will develop a fever, abdominal pain, and the tell-tale sign of infection: jaundice. In this subset of patients, more than 95 percent make a full recovery and will be immune for life. That means that of all the people who are exposed to the virus and become measurably ill, only 5 percent have the potential to become chronic carriers of hepatitis b infection. (3)
So let’s do the math: if 8,000 people in the US were diagnosed with hepatitis B in 2000, and 5 percent of them became chronic carriers, that would be 400 people. If about 1 percent of chronic carriers develop liver cancer, 4 adults could be prevented from getting liver cancer by mass vaccinating more than 4 million newborns born each year.
Why babies?
In 1991, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) began recommending the hepatitis b vaccine for newborns within the first 48 hours of life. Between 30 and 50% of children who develop adequate antibodies after three doses of vaccine will lose detectable antibodies within 7 years. (4) That means that many children vaccinated as infants will not have a measurable level of antibodies by the time they are seven years old. old; most will not retain antibodies until adulthood.
The government pushed for hepatitis B vaccination in infants as part of a strategy to eliminate the hepatitis B virus from the general population. Vaccination programs aimed at high-risk groups did not work because many adults refused the vaccine. Finding it difficult to vaccinate high-risk groups with three doses of the vaccine, government advisers decided that the only way to control the problem was to vaccinate the entire population, starting at birth.
Newborns have been targeted for vaccination because they are accessible. Ask any parent who has tried to refuse this vaccine before leaving the hospital and you will hear horror stories about the relentless pressure nurses and doctors put on them to want to vaccinate their precious newborn.
If the hepatitis b vaccine is avoided at birth, then it is given during the routine two-month office visit … along with five other vaccines: Polio (three strains), Hib (H. influenza), Prevnar (seven strep strains), DTaP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and now, the new Rotateque (four rotavirus strains). That’s a total of 19 vaccine antigens and multiple doses of chemicals injected in the same visit to an eight-week-old baby.
Clearly, the universal vaccination of all newborns with the hepatitis b vaccine is a policy based on convenience and timeliness, not necessity. Parents would do well to research the risks of hepatitis B infection long before they are forced to make a decision about the vaccine.
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(1) Hyams, KC Chronic Risks After An Acute Hepatitis B Virus Infection: A Review. Clin. Infect. Tell. 20, 992-1000. nineteen ninety five.
(2) Acute Hepatitis B Infection and Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Positivity Reported to the Department of Veterans Affairs: Occurrence in a population seeking medical assistance.
(3) Ibid. Hyams, KC (1995)
(4) Protection against viral hepatitis. Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). MMWR Feb 9, 1990; 39 (RR02): 1-26.