News coverage of our programs
A sample of news stories about or including our team's work (2024-2025).
“Hepatitis B is the most vulnerable vaccine in the schedule,” said Dr. Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “The message we’re hearing from pediatricians and gynecologists is parents are making it clear that they don’t want their baby to get the birth dose, they don’t want their baby to get the vaccine."
[Note: Maureen is a long-time Hepatitis B Foundation staffer and a #just B storyteller.] Maureen Kamischke knew something was wrong when she brought her 10-month-old adoptive daughter Maren home from China in 1998. “She was not where she should have been,” Kamischke tells PEOPLE. She and her husband Kent, who live in the Washington, D.C. area, had adopted another daughter two years earlier, and could see right away that Maren's development was different. “She was what you call a floppy baby,” Kamischke says of Maren's fatigue and weakness. “We knew something was definitely wrong. She didn't eat for a couple of days,” Kamischke recalls. They rushed her to the hospital, where, after “a bunch of tests,” Maren was confirmed to have hepatitis B...
ACIP first recommended that every infant receive the vaccine in 1991. Within three decades of the newborn vaccination policy, the rate of hepatitis B among adolescents fell 99%. Prior to 1991, about half of babies and children infected with hepatitis B were exposed by someone other than their mother, according to Michaela Jackson, the Director of Prevention Policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation.
Many States Say They’ll Defy RFK Jr.’s Changes to Hepatitis B Vaccination – WIRED Dec. 10, 2025
Medical experts have decried the decision, saying that screening across the US is imperfect and does not catch all infections. Half of people who have it don’t know that they’re infected. “The United States went through several iterations of recommendations for vaccinating against hepatitis B that were all risk-based. We tried screening mothers, we tried only vaccinating babies born to mothers living with hepatitis B, and they all failed. The universal birth dose was the ultimate success and the reason why we've seen childhood hepatitis B cases decline by 99 percent since we implemented it,” says Michaela Jackson, director of prevention policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation.
The Hepatitis B Foundation warns new guidance could undo decades of progress - NPR News Dec. 6, 2025
Dr. Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, says there is no scientific basis for scaling back newborn hepatitis B shots. The foundation released a statement on Thursday describing the meeting as lacking a transparency and one sided and we have the foundation's president, Dr. Chari Cohen with us now.... What do you make of the committee decision? (Dr. Cohen said) "I don’t understand the committee's decision. There’s no new evidence or no new data to suggest any changes to the universal habitats the vaccine recommendation..."
Hepatitis B Foundation savages CDC committee's birth dose guidance - Bucks County Herald Dec. 8, 2025
The Hepatitis B Foundation said the recent recommendation of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to remove the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine will increase the number of infections. Saying it was “deeply dismayed and extremely concerned” about the action, the Bucks County-based foundation stressed the decision will lead to more liver cancer cases and more deaths in the U.S. related to hepatitis-B, “all of which are preventable.”
CDC Panel Remade by RFK Jr. Votes to Alter Hepatitis B Vaccine Guidance - Wall Street Journal - Dec. 5, 2025
Public-health experts have warned against delaying the vaccine or only immunizing the babies of infected women at birth. They note that because the hepatitis B test is typically done in the first trimester, women can still become infected later in pregnancy or some might not get tested at all... “The birth dose is critical to preventing hepatitis B, which is the leading cause of liver cancer worldwide,” said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “It is not a virus you want your baby to have.”
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to remove the universal recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. - ABC News Dec. 5, 2025
Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, summed up the feeling of several medical organizations after today’s votes: “I don't understand them and I am concerned about the outcome. We've been implementing the universal recommendation for birth dose and the three-dose vaccine for 40 years. So, we took a recommendation that was steeped in scientific evidence and changed it without adequate scientific evidence.”
Will All Newborns Still Receive Hepatitis B Shots? A Committee’s Vote Will Tell. - New York Times Dec. 4, 2025
Mr. Kennedy has long questioned the hepatitis B vaccine’s safety and claimed, incorrectly, that it was not tested properly. He has also said, without evidence, that the vaccine causes autism and he has upbraided the C.D.C. for recommending universal vaccination at birth. But some public health experts said delaying the first dose could endanger children who may share a home or other space with someone who unknowingly has hepatitis B. One woman who became infected with the virus in early infancy is expected to speak at the meeting on Thursday. As many as 70 percent of the roughly two million Americans with hepatitis B are unaware of their diagnosis, said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “You don’t know who is going to be exposing them to the infection, so you’re not protecting those babies,” she said.
At 16 he learned he had hepatitis B. Now, a proposal to delay vaccination worries him - CNN News Dec. 4, 2025
John Ellis was born two years before the hepatitis B birth dose became routine. Now, at 35, he’s urging caution as advisers selected by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. consider delaying the shot that virtually eliminated the virus in US children. [Note: Mr. Ellis is a loyal participant in the Hepatitis B Foundation's #justB Storytellers program.]
RFK Jr.-appointed panel removes universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for U.S. infants - CBC News Dec. 5, 2025
Su Wang, a doctor and senior advisor with the Hepatitis B Foundation, spoke about how she contracted the virus likely during infancy from one of her caregivers, of whom multiple were Hep B positive. She said a policy that assessed risk only based on her mother’s status might not have prevented her from contracting the virus, but universal vaccination — which wasn’t in place when she was born — would have. “We cannot predict a child’s future risk. Like seatbelts, our overall risk of getting into a [car] accident [is] low, but we universally wear them because we cannot control the world around us,” said Wang.
CDC committee drops hep B vaccine for all newborns over objections from health officials - Los Angeles Times Dec. 4, 2025
Unlike most vaccine-preventable diseases, such as whooping cough and chickenpox, hepatitis B is typically asymptomatic, often spreading silently until midlife, when 1 in 4 infected people develop liver cancer or cirrhosis. “It’s one of the cancers with the highest mortality in the U.S.,” said Dr. Su Wang, medical director of Viral Hepatitis Programs and the Center for Asian Health at the Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey, who lives with the disease. “The life expectancy we give people is six months on average.” Opponents of the current vaccine guidance — among them, Kennedy, surgeon general nominee Casey Means and President Trump — characterize the virus as the result of high-risk “adult” behavior, including sex and IV drug use. But experts say that’s not how most people get the disease. “It’s primarily transmitted mother to child,” said Dr. Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. A majority of infected mothers are immigrants — particularly from the Philippines, China and Vietnam — making birth-dose vaccination an urgent priority for many California families.
CDC advisers vote to overturn decades-long policy on hepatitis B vaccine for infants - NPR News Dec. 5, 2025
"Risk-based recommendations do not work," says Dr. Su Wang, an internist and researcher at the Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey, and a global health adviser at the Hepatitis B Foundation. Hepatitis B doesn't only spread through sexual contact or drug use, she said, adding infants can get infected "through microscopic blood that can be transmitted through everyday exposures." Wang also said screening alone could not fill the gaps: "Newborns can't control who cares for them or whether the adults around them even know their hepatitis B status."
CDC advisers to reconvene for crucial hepatitis B vaccine vote - CNN Dec. 5, 2025
The Hepatitis B Foundation said it was “deeply disappointed and extremely concerned” about Thursday’s discussion. “Overall, the meeting lacked transparency, with many of the presentations showing one-sided data, and several points made by Committee members clearly showed that they have a very specific agenda.”
Hepatitis B Foundation President Discusses ACIP Hepatitis B Birth Dose Recommendation - Patient Care Dec. 5, 2025
Speaking about the vote, Chari A. Cohen, DrPH, MPH, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, stated that clinicians have decades of data supporting established recommendations. "This is a challenging time for clinicians, and it might make it harder to help parents make decisions about vaccines, but we do have a very strong evidence base that physicians can use to help parents make vaccination decisions," Cohen said. Her advice for primary care physicians on how to navigate conversations with parents on the choice to vaccinate their newborn, above.
CDC advisory panel rolls back universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation - NBC News Dec. 5, 2025
Public health experts worry the new recommendations will make guidance around hepatitis B vaccines less clear to providers and patients, since it does not strongly advocate for vaccinating newborns. “The more confusing we make these recommendations, the harder this is going to be for clinicians to implement,” said Chari Cohen, president of the nonprofit Hepatitis B Foundation. Cohen also questioned how feasible it would be to test babies for hepatitis B antibodies, which requires a blood draw. “If we’re talking about doing less things that might traumatize our babies, why would we be giving them blood draws? And who’s going to agree to that?” Cohen said.
The hepatitis B vaccine is ‘the original Philadelphia story.’ Now that legacy is being challenged. - Philadelphia Inquirer Oct. 10, 2025
“The hepatitis B story is the original Philadelphia story,” said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, which is also based in the Philadelphia region. Now that legacy is being challenged by President Donald Trump, who last month asserted without scientific evidence that newborns should no longer universally receive the shot, saying that people should wait until age 12.
RFK, Jr. advisory postpones vote on hepatitis B vaccine birth dose until Friday
ABC News Live Sept. 18, 2025
Dr. Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, breaks down why the "safety net" of the birth dose of the vaccine is so important.
Kennedy’s Advisory Panel Votes to Limit M.M.R.V. Vaccine for Children Under 4
The New York Times Sept. 18, 2025
Many hepatitis B infections in pregnant women are missed, despite a longstanding recommendation to test them routinely. Infected women may also not be identified because of inaccurate results or because of problems reporting or interpreting the results. “It will be challenging to identify all positive moms, and ensure that a birth dose is available to those infants in hospitals, especially for those who do not receive prenatal care,” said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “So it is likely that many babies born to positive moms will be missed,” she said. “We will likely see new chronic hepatitis B infections among some new babies.”
RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Panel Targets Hepatitis B Vaccine for Newborns
Bloomberg News Sept. 18, 2025
Hepatitis B is transmitted through blood or body fluids, so mothers can unknowingly infect their children. In fact, mother-to-baby exposure and close contact to other family members is the most common way for the disease to spread, said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “This would be the first major change to the childhood vaccine recommendation schedule,” Cohen said. “I don't think it will be the last. I think it’s the stepping stone."
CDC panel votes to separate MMR and chicken pox vaccines
ABC World News Tonight Sept, 18, 2025
[Note: Dr. Su Wang, senior advisor for global health and board member of the Hepatitis B Foundation, is included in this segment.] Steve Osunsami has details on the CDC advisory panel’s decision to separate the chicken pox vaccine from the widely-used combination vaccine that fights the measles, mumps and rubella (along with the panel's consideration of the hepatitis B vaccine and decision to delay the vote until this [Friday] morning).
Key federal vaccine panel considers delay to newborn hepatitis B shot, risking virus’ resurgence
STAT News Sept. 18, 2025
Giving newborns their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine almost immediately helps ensure that they don’t contract the disease from their mothers. While pregnant people are recommended to be screened for hepatitis B, some people don’t receive prenatal care, and some people may get hepatitis B after being screened. If the first shot is pushed back, “we’re going to miss babies, we’re going to miss moms, we’re going to miss those who are most vulnerable,” Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, said in an interview. “We’re removing the safety net essentially.”
Why doctors say the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is still necessary
ABC News Sept. 18, 2025
"Four to five decades of implementation science shows us that risk-based vaccine recommendations in this case, don't work," Chari Cohen, DrPH, MPH, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, told ABC News… Dr. Su Wang, a primary care doctor and person living with chronic hepatitis B who is a spokesperson for the Hepatitis B Foundation, knows how easily people can get missed from both sides of the healthcare system. "We certainly cannot count on our system in the U.S., the way it is, our broken healthcare system to actually even identify those who are at risk, much less those who don't have an identified risk..."
Former CDC director warns about changes to childhood vaccine schedule at hearing
ABC News Sept. 18, 2025
Capturing children and infants, particularly while they are young, with hepatitis B vaccine is critical, said Michaela Jackson, program director of prevention policy at the Hepatitis B Foundation. It’s also important in ”preventing cirrhosis, preventing liver damage, liver cancer — all the consequences of living with a lifelong virus,” he said. “There’s a direct correlation between the age of which you are infected and your chances of getting a chronic infection,” Jackson said. “A baby who is born with hepatitis B has a 90% chance of developing chronic hepatitis B. They’re going to take that with them throughout their entire life,” Jackson said.
RFK Jr.’s Crusade Against Vaccines Hits Its Action Phase
The Bulwark Sept. 16, 2025
Data showed lots of cases were evading detection. It’s a big reason ACIP recommended moving to a universal system, and why organizations like the Hepatitis B Foundation have come out strongly against changes that would remove the current universal recommendation and/or push it back to later in childhood. Before the early, universal vaccination recommendations were in place, “18,000 babies and young children a year got hepatitis B,” Chari Cohen, the foundation’s president, told me in an interview. “If we move back the recommendations, not only are we going to see new babies and young children get infected with a virus that causes liver cancer, but we’re going to see reduced access to the vaccine overall. I think it’s going to be disastrous.”
Kennedy's vaccine panel expected to recommend delaying hepatitis B shot in children
NPR News Sept. 16, 2025
[Note: Wendy is one of our #JustB Storytellers and an active partner/advocate.] Wendy Lo, 52, who lives in the San Francisco Bay area, says she has probably had hepatitis B since birth. Years of navigating the psychological, monetary, medical and social aspects of chronic hepatitis B has impacted almost every aspect of her life. "I would not want anyone to have to experience that if it can be prevented," she said.
Dropping hepatitis B shots for newborns would ignore history and endanger children, scientists warn
STAT News Sept, 11, 2025
One reason for giving the first vaccine dose on the first day of life, and the next doses soon after, is that infants are exquisitely vulnerable. A newly minted immune system — still learning what’s foreign and what’s self, not yet able to muster certain protective white blood cells — can allow hepatitis B to run amok, replicating continuously... “What you need to do is get their bodies the tools they need for the babies to start fighting the virus as soon as they are exposed,” said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation.
The hepatitis B vaccine has sharply cut infections in children. Why are some against it?
NBC News Sept 9, 2025
The new committee chair, Martin Kulldorff — a biostatistician who said he was fired from Harvard for refusing to get a Covid vaccination — cast doubt on the hepatitis B vaccine at the group’s first meeting in June. “Unless the mother is hepatitis B positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection,” Kulldorff said. That argument includes dangerous assumptions, said Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. A 2019 report found that only 84% to 88% of pregnant women are tested for the virus. Dr. Su Wang, an internal medicine doctor, learned she had hepatitis B after donating blood when she was in college. Although her mother did not have the disease, other family members did.
Opinion: PA’s congressional delegation must stand their ground and fund NIH
City & State Pennsylvania Aug. 22, 2025
The National Institutes of Health – the single largest funder of medical research in America – faces mounting political and budget pressures. If federal support falters, Pennsylvania will feel it first and feel it hard. That’s why the newly formed Pennsylvania Ad Hoc Coalition for NIH Funding, convened by the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center (PABC), is rallying to protect NIH’s budget. Our coalition already includes more than 11 organizations, such as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, the Wistar Institute and (the Hepatitis B Foundation and Baruch S. Blumberg Institute).
‘Makes No Sense': Experts Push Back on RFK Jr.’s Doubts about Hepatitis B Vaccine
MedPage Today Aug. 13, 2025
In an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Kennedy had claimed knowledge of a CDC study linking the hepatitis B vaccine to autism that he said was hidden from the public. He asserted it showed a "1,135% elevated risk of autism" among vaccinated children but was "manipulated ... through five different iterations to try to bury the link." No credible evidence exists that such a study was ever conducted. "I've never seen, nor do I know of anyone who's ever seen, such a study," Hepatitis B Foundation President Chari Cohen, DrPH, MPH, told MedPage Today. "What we do know is that there is no link between the hepatitis B vaccine and autism."
Vaccine policy in the U.S. is entering uncharted territory
Science July 2, 2025
Among other moves, the committee scrapped votes on expanding access to important vaccines, announced plans to reevaluate the childhood vaccine schedule and said established vaccines, including the hepatitis B shot for newborns, will be reviewed every seven years. The committee also resurfaced many long-debunked anti-vaccine talking points. All of this is unprecedented for ACIP, and public health experts now worry that instead of boosting confidence and protecting health, just the opposite will happen. “I am very concerned that we are going to lose policies and recommendations that save babies, infants, children and adults,” says Chari Cohen, a public health scientist and president of the nonprofit Hepatitis B Foundation.
TWiV Special: A Shot of HepB with Chari Cohen
This Week in Virology April 29, 2025
An interview with Hepatitis B Foundation President Dr. Chari Cohen was posted today by our friends with This Week in Virology, a podcast that's quite popular with scientists and nonscientists alike who are interested in viruses and the research around them. In this chat, Dr. Rich Condit asked Dr. Cohen about her background and her interest in hepatitis B, how the virus effects people and the Hepatitis B Foundation's work. Please give it a listen!
A Cancer-Causing Virus Hiding in Millions of Americans
The New Yorker Dec. 18, 2024
A widely read and influential U.S. magazine, The New Yorker, published a powerful article about hepatitis B. Among the experts quoted are Dr. Chari Cohen, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation. “Any other disease that kills as many people, and that causes as much decrease in quality of life, would never be sidelined,” Dr. Cohen said.
This ancient disease still kills 1 million people every year
Vox Future Perfect Aug. 28, 2024
About 6,000 people are still being diagnosed with hepatitis B or C every day, and more than 3,500 people die daily from these infections. Chari Cohen, now the president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, which advocates for investments in research and treatment for the disease, started her career researching the disease around the turn of the century. “Twenty-five years later, I thought we’d be in a better place,” she told me recently.
‘Uncommon’ but not ‘unimportant’: Screen all patients with hepatitis B for HDV
Healio Gastroenterology Aug. 19, 2024
Despite being the smallest virus capable of causing human disease, it is estimated that up to 80% of patients with hepatitis delta virus will progress to liver cirrhosis and more than 50% will die of liver disease within 10 years of diagnosis. “It is the most severe form of viral hepatitis,” Beatrice Zovich, MPH, public health program manager at Hepatitis B Foundation, told Healio Gastroenterology. “When someone is living with hepatitis delta, they have a much more rapid progression to cirrhosis and potentially liver failure or hepatocellular carcinoma.”
Eliminating Silent Killer through Swift Actions
Bio Spectrum (Asia Edition) July 1, 2024
According to the WHO 2024 Global Hepatitis Report, viral hepatitis is on the rise and remains the second leading infectious cause of death globally, claiming 1.3 million lives annually, equivalent to tuberculosis. Just ten countries account for nearly two thirds of the global burden of viral hepatitis B and C: China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Vietnam, The Philippines and the Russian Federation. “For prevention, all babies born are recommended to receive the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine and complete the vaccine series – and 80 per cent of babies complete this recommendation in Western Pacific. To eliminate hepatitis B, this needs to be improved. Additionally, it is recommended that all pregnant women are screened and provided treatment if needed during pregnancy to prevent mother to child transmission,” said Dr. Chari A. Cohen, President, Hepatitis B Foundation, United States.
Improving Hepatitis B Screening and Vaccination in 2024
HCPLive May 19, 2024
In recognition of May 19 as World Hepatitis Testing Day and the month of May as Hepatitis Awareness Month, we are launching our latest HCPLive Special Report, which spotlights a conversation between subject matter experts on updates and unmet needs in the management of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in 2024. The first in our 6-part series, this segment opens with introductions from our 3 subject matter experts, which is followed by a discussion on updates in pathophysiology and how they have influenced current care strategies for HBV. Panelists: Chari Cohen, DrPH, MPH (Moderator): President of the Hepatitis B Foundation; Nancy Reau, MD: Richard B. Capps Chair of Hepatology, Associate Director of Solid Organ Transplantation, and Section Chief of Hepatology at Rush University Medical Center; Andrew Talal, MD: Professor of Medicine and Founder/Director of the Center for Research and Clinical Care in Liver Disease at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Should More People Be Treated for Hepatitis B?
Hepmag.com Feb. 27, 2024
In a recent commentary in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, (Dr. Su) Wang, Chari Cohen, DrPH, MPH, president of the Hepatitis B Foundation, and colleagues made the case that people living with hepatitis B should have a voice in creating new treatment guidelines. “Guidelines for treating and managing hepatitis B need to be written with a sensitivity to the practical issues and social-emotional considerations faced by people living with hepatitis B,” Cohen said in a news release. “Additionally, the new guidelines need to be relevant to the real-life conditions that exist in a range of countries around the world, especially those where hepatitis B is most prevalent, such as Africa and Asia.”
Unveiling the Shadows: The Emotional and Social Tolls of Chronic Hepatitis B
BNNbreaking.com Feb. 26, 2024
In the quiet corners of everyday life, where personal struggles often remain hidden, a recent study sheds light on the profound emotional and social challenges faced by individuals living with Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB). Conducted across five countries, including the United States, China, Germany, Italy, and Japan, this research unveils the often silent battle against stigma, isolation, and the quest for normalcy amidst the complexities of a chronic illness.
Fred B Beans donates $500K to local organizations through EITC Program
Doylestown Patch Jan. 24, 2024
At the end of 2023, the company selected 12 recipients to each receive $25,000 and four recipients to each receive $50,000. The Hepatitis B Foundation is one of the $50,000 donation recipients. Dr. Chari Cohen, foundation president, said the EITC funding from Fred Beans provides two special learning opportunities for high school students: a countywide summer program at the Blumberg Institute research labs and an AP chemistry class and lab work on campus.
Newtown resident Chari Cohen wants to help eliminate hepatitis B
Jewish Exponent Jan. 16, 2024
The Newtown resident does not have a specific connection to the disease. Her commitment to fighting it does not come from some family or personal story. She just got an internship there while working toward her master’s in public health at Temple University. And she found it to be a worthwhile cause. “The cofounders of the organization (Joan and Tim Block) led the organization with 100% commitment,” Cohen said. “Their goal is to cure Hepatitis B and help 300 million people live better lives. They instilled that in me and everyone else who works there.”