Most Democratic-led states say they will continue to universally recommend and administer the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, despite new guidance against it issued last week by a federal vaccine advisory panel handpicked by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr .

The Northeast Public Health Collaborative and the West Coast Health Alliance, which formed earlier this year in response to Kennedy’s concerning overhaul of vaccine policy, along with a other blue states, plan to to defy the latest recommendations made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices , or ACIP.

Hepatitis B is a serious, incurable infection that can lead to liver damage and liver cancer. It can be passed from mother to child during delivery,

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