Since Donald Trump’s election, Massachusetts’ public health director, Dr. Robbie Goldstein, has been preparing for a situation that once seemed unimaginable: a presidential administration limits access to life-saving vaccines for millions of Americans.

Goldstein’s worst case scenario is now a possibility, he said. On Thursday, an influential vaccine advisory panel could end a 34-year national consensus on the importance of vaccinating newborns against the liver infection hepatitis B.

If the panel, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reverses the recommendation that all infants be immunized at birth, it would be the most significant policy change yet under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership, undoing an inoculation strategy credited with virtually eliminating cases of the illness among infants

Read the article.