On December 2, 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met to review the hepatitis B vaccine. Vaccine experts, including vaccine manufacturers and CDC subject matter experts, reported being shut out of the meeting. CDC staff had presented on hepatitis B vaccines at a previous committee meeting in September 2025, but committee members disputed the data presented and insisted that insufficient research had been conducted on the vaccine’s long-term safety. The staff were not permitted to return for the December meeting.
Ahead of the December meeting, the director of the CDC’s Immunization Services Division informed all staff that no one from their division or the Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases would present.
While a Health and Human Services spokesperson maintained that “a diverse group of viewpoints” would be presented at the December meeting, public health experts have expressed concern. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases, told reporters, “How [ACIP is] approaching this is not how science works. That seems to be the main goal of this committee—to scare the American public about vaccines.”