A committee of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tasked with advising the country on vaccines voted to remove a decades-long recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns.

On Dec. 5, the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8 to 3 to eliminate the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine that has been recommended for all newborns since 1991. It now recommends the birth dose only for mothers who are positive for hepatitis B or whose hepatitis B status isn’t known, and in remaining cases, leaves families and doctors to decide when to administer that dose. The committee also voted to allow “shared decision-making” about whether babies receive all three doses of the vaccine. Currently, CDC recommends babies get vaccinated for hepatitis B

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