Dec. 5, 2025, 9:18 AM ESTBy Aria Bendix and Erika EdwardsThe CDC’s vaccine advisory panel is expected to decide Friday whether all newborns should routinely get hepatitis B vaccines. The vote was delayed after a chaotic meeting Thursday when members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — whose members Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired in June and replaced with a group that has largely expressed skepticism of vaccines — debated the voting language. The vote on the hepatitis B vaccine had already been pushed back after a September meeting. Demonstrators outside the Center for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta on Thursday.Megan Varner / Bloomberg via Getty ImagesThe vaccine has been recommended for all babies within 24 hours of birth for more than three decades. The panel is considering whether to roll back that guidance and instead suggest that women who test negative for hepatitis B decide in consultation with a health care provider whether their baby should get the dose at birth.The hepatitis B vaccine protects against an incurable infection that can be transmitted from mother to child during delivery and can lead to liver disease, cancer and death. If the panel rolls back the universal recommendation for newborns, it would go against widespread consensus among public health experts, who before Thursday’s meeting issued loud pleas not to change the hepatitis B vaccination schedule.Aria BendixAria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.Erika EdwardsErika Edwards is a health and medical news writer and reporter for NBC News and “TODAY.”Anne Thompson contributed.