Aaron Siri, I guess to justify the millions he gets paid to do this stuff, claims that he is suing doctors and hospitals that inject newborns with a hepatitis B vaccine without parental consent.

Doctors and hospitals should not be giving vaccines to parents who do not want their kids to be vaccinated. But anti-vaccine influencers should not be using misinformation to scare parents into a decision to skip or delay vaccinating their kids!

Something that is hopefully rare.

Misinformed Consent about Hepatitis B Vaccines from Aaron Siri

But it is important to note that as he talks about parental consent, by pushing misinformation and propaganda about vaccines, these kinds of anti-vaccine influencers are actually violating the basic principles of informed consent!

After all, you can’t get informed consent if you aren’t properly informed about the vaccine and the vaccine-preventable disease it prevents, right?

“In seeking a patient’s informed consent... physicians should: ... include information about: ... the burdens, risks, and expected benefits of all options, including forgoing treatment.”
Informed Consent

If all you are hearing about is exaggerated risks of the vaccines, that’s not informed consent!

If you are lied to about the reason the we have a universal hepatitis B vaccination program, then that’s not informed consent!

“With those billions at stake, an argument was made that if all newborns were vaccinated (not just the tiny number whose mothers were hepatitis B positive) then we could catch these babies before they became prostitutes or heroin addicts. CDC’s advisory committee, stacked with individuals receiving funding from pharma, added it to the routine childhood schedule in 1995.”
Aaron Siri

For example, Aaron Siri wants you to think that the hepatitis B vaccine was added to the routine childhood schedule just so that Big Pharma could make more money.

“In the United States it has become evident that HBV transmission cannot be prevented through vaccinating only the groups at high risk of infection.”
Hepatitis B Virus: A Comprehensive Strategy for Eliminating Transmission in the United States Through Universal Childhood Vaccination: Recommendations of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP)

If we look back, it is easy to see that the hepatitis B vaccine was actually added to the routine childhood schedule in 1991, after years of trying to just target high risk newborns.

We tried universal prenatal testing and vaccination programs first, and they were helpful when mothers were positive for chronic hepititis B, but children could still get infected if other family members or contacts had hepatitis B.

The best strategy to control hepatitis B infections, experts found, was universal vaccination of all newborns.

“So why aren’t people living with hepatitis B on treatment? Cost can be a barrier.”
Accessing Hepatitis B Treatment

And that’s why many countries now have universal infant hepatitis B vaccination programs, including many that give a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.

In addition to the simple fact that you are saving lives, universal infant hepatitis B vaccination programs are cost effective.

They save money and send less money to Big Pharma!

What else?

Hepatitis B vaccines are safe, are well studied, and have few serious side effects.

And they keep our kids from developing cancer!!!

Don’t Be a Victim of Misinformed Consent

Remember, it’s not informed consent if you aren’t told that:

Before we had a universal hepatitis B vaccination program, a lot of babies still became infected congenital hepatitis B and the majority of them developed chronic hepatitis B, putting them at great risk to die from from cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).
The hepatitis B vaccine costs just over $17 a dose vs the $1,362 to $8,100 for a 30-day supply of one of the preferred treatments for chronic hepatitis B. Now if this is about Big Pharma making money, why on earth would they be pushing hepatitis B vaccines?!? Wouldn’t they want everyone to get sick with chronic hepatitis B and then sell them expensive anti-viral medications year after year until they developed cirrhosis, liver cancer, needed a liver tran$plant, or died? (Remember, there is no cure for chronic hepatitis B…)
The hepatitis B clinical trials lasted for more than 5 days, despite what Aaron Siri would have you think. And there have been many post-marketing studies that clearly show the hepatitis B vaccines are safe.

Still want to skip or delay getting that hepatitis B vaccine?

That’s ok.

Just make sure you are making a truly informed choice and you understand the risks of not getting vaccinated, risks of getting exposed, and developing chronic hepatitis B.

And make sure you understand the benefits of the hepatitis B vaccine you are skipping! It is a safe and well studied vaccine, with few serious side effects, and it prevents chronic hepatitis B disease, for which there is no cure, and liver cancer!

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References

Informed Consent. https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/informed-consent

Hepatitis B Virus: A Comprehensive Strategy for Eliminating Transmission in the United States Through Universal Childhood Vaccination: Recommendations of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP). MMWR. November 22, 1991 / 40(RR-13);1-19

Khetsuriani N, Mosina L, Van Damme P, Mozalevskis A, Datta S, Tohme RA. Progress Toward Hepatitis B Control - World Health Organization European Region, 2016-2019. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021 Jul 30;70(30):1029-1035. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7030a1. Erratum in: MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021 Aug 20;70(33):1126. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.mm7033a6. PMID: 34324482; PMCID: PMC8323554.

Biondi MJ, Estes C, Razavi-Shearer D, Sahdra K, Lipton N, Shah H, Capraru C, Janssen HLA, Razavi H, Feld JJ. Cost-effectiveness modelling of birth and infant dose vaccination against hepatitis B virus in Ontario from 2020 to 2050. CMAJ Open. 2023 Jan 10;11(1):E24-E32. doi: 10.9778/cmajo.20210284. PMID: 36627129; PMCID: PMC9842099.

Mironova M, Ghany MG. Hepatitis B Vaccine: Four Decades on. Vaccines (Basel). 2024 Apr 18;12(4):439. doi: 10.3390/vaccines12040439. PMID: 38675820; PMCID: PMC11053833.

Cao M, Fan J, Lu L, Fan C, Wang Y, Chen T, Zhang S, Yu Y, Xia C, Lu J, Chen K, Yao H, Chen W, Qu C. Long term outcome of prevention of liver cancer by hepatitis B vaccine: Results from an RCT with 37 years. Cancer Lett. 2022 Jun 28;536:215652. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2022.215652. Epub 2022 Mar 19. PMID: 35318115.

Accessing Hepatitis B Treatment. https://www.hepb.org/blog/accessing-treatment/

Toy M, Hutton D, Jia J, So S. Costs and health impact of delayed implementation of a national hepatitis B treatment program in China. J Glob Health. 2022 Jul 8;12:04043. doi: 10.7189/jogh.12.04043. PMID: 35796158; PMCID: PMC9260492.

Misinformed Consent about Hepatitis B…