This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: In their article on the impact of recommendations regarding the birth dose of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine, Dr Daum and colleagues¹ concluded that "special efforts may be required to make at-birth administration of HBV vaccination universal." However, since HBV vaccination of newborns has never been shown to be better than vaccination after the maturation of the immune system, this worry about missing the birth dose seems misplaced.

There is no scientific evidence to justify HBV vaccination before the age when those risk factors associated with the HBV transmission (sex, needles, etc) become relevant. Recent risk-benefit analyses show HBV vaccination among children carries one of the largest unjustified risks and substantial financial costs, second only to the new controversial conjugate pneumococcal vaccine.^2-3 Specifically, HBV immunization has been associated with 53 deaths and 828 serious injuries, but for 38 million children younger than age 10 years, the total . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Impact of Recommendations to Suspend the Birth Dose of Hepatitis B Virus Vaccine
, , , and
JAMA. ;285():1874-1879.
FULL TEXT