Overview
- A Dec. 5 White House directive labeled the U.S. an outlier on vaccine volume and ordered a review to align guidance with practices in peer nations.
- Reporting indicates HHS is considering trimming recommendations from coverage of 17 diseases to roughly 10 by modeling Denmark, with any announcement expected in 2026 according to the New York Times.
- Experts note Denmark’s universal healthcare and near-universal prenatal hepatitis B screening, compared with about 80% screening in the U.S., and warn that narrowing guidance could raise infection risk.
- Analyses cited by Forbes estimate U.S. delays or missed hepatitis B shots could lead annually to at least 1,400 preventable infections, 300 excess liver cancer cases, and 480 deaths, despite a 99% reduction in childhood infection since birth dosing began in 1991.
- Most peer-country schedules differ only slightly from the U.S., experts say Denmark is an outlier, and they caution that abandoning evidence-based processes or weakening endorsements—along with calls to split combination shots—could erode confidence, affect insurance coverage, and increase outbreak risk.