ACIP Vote Drives Online Engagement About Hepatitis B Vaccine, And Posts Claim a VAERS “Cover-Up” of COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths

Recent Developments

Online Conversations About Childhood Vaccination Schedule Continue Following ACIP Meeting

What’s happening?

• The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted earlier this month to end its prior recommendation that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth. The committee now recommends that parents of infants born to mothers who test negative for hepatitis B should consult with their health care provider and decide when or if their child should be vaccinated.
• The universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine has been credited with a 99 percent drop in hepatitis B infections in children and teens since the 1991 recommendation, but high-profile critics of the universal birth dose, including Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have argued that vaccinating all children is unnecessary when many cases are transmitted through sexual activity or needle-sharing among adults.
• After the vote by ACIP, President Donald Trump called for a full review of the childhood vaccination schedule, suggesting limiting the number of recommended children’s vaccinations to match that of “peer, developed countries.”

How has this contributed to online conversation?

• KFF’s monitoring of X, Reddit, and Bluesky identified more than 50,000 posts, reposts, and comments mentioning hepatitis B on X, Reddit, and Bluesky on December 5, the day of the vote, up from a daily average of approximately 3,400 posts thus far in 2025 as of December 8. Many accounts framed the decision as a victory for parental rights or medical freedom, celebrating the move to shared clinical decision-making. Some accounts which have previously shared false information about vaccines characterized the universal birth dose as previously having been “forced” on newborns, despite ACIP’s recommendations not constituting vaccine mandates.
• The enhanced engagement about hepatitis B has persisted beyond the initial spike on December 5, with the average number of daily posts, reposts, and comments remaining elevated at approximately 17,000 through December 12. But, the volume of posts is declining, and KFF will continue to monitor how these conversations evolve.

Who do people trust for health information in light of conflicting guidance?

Following ACIP’s vote to end the universal hepatitis B birth dose recommendation, major medical organizations including the American Medical Association (AMA) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued statements emphasizing the importance of hepatitis B vaccination for newborns. Several Democratic governors and state health departments in Democratic-led states have also reaffirmed support for the birth dose, leaving parents with conflicting recommendations from federal and state authorities, as well as from professional medical organizations. Recent polling from the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that when the CDC and AMA issue conflicting vaccine recommendations, Americans are more likely to accept the AMA’s recommendation by a 2-to-1 margin, regardless of political affiliation. KFF polling similarly shows that larger shares of the public trust their own health care providers and physicians associations like the AMA and AAP than the CDC for reliable vaccine information. In light of conflicting recommendations, these survey findings suggest that enhanced prenatal counseling may be helpful for alleviating confusion about vaccine guidelines among parents.

Why this matters

•  ACIP’s decision to end the universal birth dose recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine, despite its documented effectiveness and safety record, signals a shift in how the committee weighs population-level protection against individual parental choice. Online narratives celebrated the decision as a victory for medical freedom, indicating that personal decision making may outweigh public health concerns for some parents.
• The debate over hepatitis B vaccinations indicates further partisan divides. A recent KFF Quick Take explores findings from the KFF/Washington Post Survey of Parents, showing that very few parents report skipping or delaying the hepatitis B vaccine for their children, but Republican supporters of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) and supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) are more likely to have done so.
• The KFF/Washington Post poll found that similar shares report skipping or delaying other recommended childhood vaccines like MMR or chickenpox. President Trump’s call to review the full pediatric vaccine schedule suggests that concerns about the timing of hepatitis B vaccination may influence broader conversations about childhood immunization schedules that health professionals should monitor.

Claims of “Cover-Up” Emerge Following FDA Memo on Vaccine Deaths

What’s happening?

• A recent internal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) memo  claims to link at least 10 pediatric deaths to COVID-19 vaccines, based on reports from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The memo, which does not include children’s ages, medical histories, or other evidence, has not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal, its claims have been criticized by 12 former FDA commissioners as well as by current FDA staff. The FDA has since announced it is expanding its investigation to examine adult deaths potentially linked to COVID-19 vaccines.
• VAERS is a passive vaccine surveillance system, and reports of side effects can be submitted by anyone including patients, healthcare providers, or individuals without medical training. The system is intended to generate hypotheses and identify possible concerns, not establish causality. Individuals and groups opposed to vaccinations have commonly misrepresented VAERS data to cast doubt on vaccine safety by presenting unverified reports as proof of harm.

What are common online narratives?

• Online narratives about the FDA memo have continued through December. While early discussions focused on the memo’s claims about the 10 deaths, recent conversations have framed the announcement as evidence of a broader “cover-up” of vaccine harms. The vice chair of ACIP, who has more than 1.3 million followers on X, posted that the pediatric deaths were previously identified by the CDC, but were only now being disclosed. Approximately 17% of all posts KFF identified about the FDA memo in December thus far as of December 15, used language that suggested the memo was an admission that the FDA hid vaccine deaths from the public, using terms like “cover-up,” “finally admitting,” “caught red-handed,” or claims that officials “lied” about vaccine safety.  Some also expressed feelings of “vindication” for individuals who were allegedly “silenced” or “censored” for raising concerns about COVID-19 vaccines.
• A Substack article published in early December and shared by an account on X with more than 500,000 followers claimed that the memo may result in the FDA adding a “black-box” warning to COVID vaccines or removing them from the market.

What does the evidence say?

COVID-19 vaccines have been extensively studied in children, and multiple published, peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated no increase in mortality. The vaccines have been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization and severe illness, and about 2,100 children have died from COVID-19 itself since the pandemic began.

Why this matters

Federal health officials framing unverified VAERS reports as evidence of vaccine-caused deaths may contribute to uncertainty among parents about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children. The KFF/The Washington Post Survey of Parents found that large majorities of parents had positive views of long-standing childhood vaccinations, but were more uncertain about COVID-19 vaccines. Previous KFF polling has shown that about half (52%) of adults said they did not know enough to say whether mRNA vaccines were generally safe or generally unsafe. The FDA memo may provide what appears to be official validation for these concerns, making it more difficult for health communicators to explain the limitations of VAERS and the vaccines’ established safety record.

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