The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel voted Friday to change the recommendation for when children should get their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. Instead of a first dose within 24 hours of birth — as the CDC has advised for more than 30 years — the panel voted to recommend delaying it until a child is 2 months old for children born to mothers who test negative for the virus.

The newly appointed chair of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel privately expressed concerns about the committee’s independence, according to a transcript of remarks obtained by POLITICO.

"Do you want to expose your child, your baby, to an intervention that could have some potential harms when the risk is so low?" said Retsef Levi, one of the advisers who supported the new recommendati...