Will Humble fears RFK Jr.'s vaccine policies will make them unavailable for everyone. Here's how

An Arizona state lawmaker is asking the Arizona Department of Health Services to update its guidance on giving newborns the vaccine for hepatitis B.

A federal panel changed decades of advice on this issue. Instead of recommending the vaccination of all babies within 12 hours of birth, it’s now saying parents should consult with their doctors unless the mother tested positive for hepatitis B.

Despite that, the Arizona Department of Health Services is continuing to recommend all babies get the vaccine.

This is just one change that’s been made under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Will Humble, the former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services and current executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, joined The Show to talk about that and what might be on the horizon.

Bret Jaspers/KJZZ

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: So what do you make of this sort of back and forth between the feds and the state? And there's been a lot made of this, this change on hep B. Big deal?

WILL HUMBLE: Medium deal.

BRODIE: Medium deal.

HUMBLE: OK. Yeah. So just to do a little bit of backtracking. So hepatitis B is a bloodborne pathogen infection. And so if mom was — oh, and by the way, it's not like influenza where you get infected, you get better, the virus is gone.

BRODIE: It's always there.

HUMBLE: It's a chronic infection, and so it's a lifetime infection. And so let's say a mom was born to a mom who had a chronic hepatitis B infection. The that person gets exposed to that blood in the birth canal, and then they end up having a lifetime infection with hepatitis B. Then they have a baby. Then that new baby has an infection with hepatitis B.

So to interrupt that chain of vertical transmission ... if you get the vaccine on board to the baby right away, it prevents that baby from having that infection, even if the mom had a hepatitis B infection. So that's why it's so important to do at birth, because you have to administer the vaccine right then and there at birth, or else the baby's gonna have a lifetime infection.

So I was pleased to see that the state health department pushed back on the new federal guidance that came from the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

BRODIE: And we should mention we heard the FDA commissioner was on Morning Edition just this morning saying that, look, we're not saying don't get the vaccine, we're just saying don't get it right away unless the mother tests positive. But I guess that raises the question, when the mother is tested for hep B, how accurate is that test?

HUMBLE: So that — perfect question, and that is really the issue which is that the there's a false neg — when the mom gets tested. Let's see. If you have ever had hepatitis B, they do a blood test, about 2% to 3% of those tests say you're negative when you're actually positive. So it's a false negative.

So what this policy change opens the door to is those moms who are really infected with hepatitis B screen negative, and then think, "Well, why should I get this vaccine for my baby right away? I'm negative." Well, actually, they're not negative. And so we have 80,000 births a year in Arizona, and 2% to 3% of 80,000 is 2,000 kids.

So I'm not saying 2,000 kids are gonna ... slip through the cracks and become chronically infected with hepatitis B. But that's the pool of kids that are at risk if this is widely implemented across hospital systems and parents, this new recommendation.

.... And by the way, it's super, been deployed for like 30 years. We know it's safe. It's, by the way, inexpensive too. So it makes perfect sense to continue to form our policy. And so I'm hoping that most hospital systems will, and birthing centers, will maintain the old policy by explaining to parents, "Yes, you tested negative, but you might actually not be negative. Would you like to protect your baby, just to be sure?" "Oh, of course I would."
And hopefully that's what ends up really happening.

BRODIE: Well, one of the other big things vaccine-related that has come from RFK Jr. is changing language online basically saying that it's possible that vaccines cause autism. This, of course, has been a belief of his for a long time, despite widespread research that suggests otherwise. And really no evidence to suggest that vaccines lead to autism.

Do you suspect that this might be something that he continues to try to work its way into the public health system?

HUMBLE: Yes, and I'll tell you why. First of all, I just want to reinforce the idea — there's studies and studies of studies that all demonstrate that vaccines do not cause, there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism, both in the U.S. in Canada, in Western Europe. ... It's hard to think of anything that's been more studied than this.

But to answer your question, yes, here's why. Because a lot of these vaccines — the older vaccines like MMR and hepatitis A and B, those vaccines are not profitable vaccines. They're generics. They've been around so long that the vaccine manufacturers don't make a lot of money on those. And so vaccine manufacturers were dropping out of the vaccine business 20, 30 years ago because it wasn't worth it to them for those rare events when there is — and there are actually, there's such a thing as vaccine injuries. I mean, they're really rare, but they do happen.

BRODIE: Yeah.

HUMBLE: And so they started quitting the vaccine business, saying, "Hey, look, we're not making any money on these things anyway, and we ever time we get sued, it's gonna cost us, so we're gonna just stop making vaccines."

So Congress stepped in and created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund a few decades ago. And that provided the legal framework, the litigation framework, so the vaccine manufacturers, "OK, we'll keep making the vaccines. Even though we're not making any money on these things, we're gonna keep making them, and we're protected from the rare events when something bad happens."

Where I'm going with this is I'm afraid that Kennedy is trying to falsely link autism to vaccines, so that he can then tell everybody who's got a kid with autism on the spectrum that, "Oh, guess what? That could have been from the vaccine. Apply to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. Get some money in exchange for that." That would bankrupt the fund, and then vaccine manufacturers would quit the business.

And so in that way, Kennedy, could get rid of vaccinations without pulling licenses, but making them become unavailable.

That's my biggest fear.