Tangle - The new hepatitis B vaccine recommendations.

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 8–3 to eliminate a longstanding recommendation that all newborns receive a first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The committee instead recommended that women who test negative for hepatitis B should consult with their doctors to determine whether their babies should be given the first dose of the vaccine, suggesting that the initial dose be administered after the infant is at least two months old. The committee voted on the change after it heard presentations from several vaccine critics; no Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) subject-matter experts presented to the panel. Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: How does the latest change affect your trust in CDC vaccine recommendations? Let us know. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was written by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. It is Monday, December 8th. My voice, my voice is a little bit fried. I was in New York City this weekend. I had a couple events, alumni events for an ultimate Frisbee team I've played for.

On top of giving a speech at the event, I also competed in a game, alumni versus currents, where I was screaming a lot. And then we had back-to-back nights of events. hanging out in some loud bars in New York City and I was doing a lot of talking and yeah I managed to fry my voice so I apologize for how raspy and gaspy I sound today but rest assured it's from the product of having a fun weekend connecting with old friends and competing a bit which is always super fun we're covering the Hepbee vaccine stuff today so man it's uh This is an interesting one. I always feel a little bit worried and hesitant to wait into this stuff because it's like it's politics and it's policy, but it's also medicine.

And there's something about us being in the arena on these questions of science and medicine. That makes me uncomfortable and worried a little bit. But I think we give this some good fair treatment today. And I'm excited to share my take with you. Before you jump in, I do want to give you a quick heads up that we publish. On Friday, a piece from A.M. Hickman about his experience as a self-described vagabond, hobo, and hitchhiker in the United States in which he talked about why he misses being homeless. Hickman's story received a huge wide range of reactions from praise for his writing to criticism of his ideas. And as always, that's kind of the sort of stuff we like publishing here. Fresh, engaging perspectives that drive interesting dialogue and debate. I don't think anything he said or did or anything was out of bounds. I think it was all so interesting and compelling as a narrative

that it evoked a lot of emotion and a lot of people. So if you want, you can read his piece on our website titled Drifters Lament, or you can go back an episode or two in our podcast feed and find it. He did a readdown of it for the show, so it's worth listening to. I personally thought it was excellent, and I'm proud that we published the piece. despite, you know, thinking some of the criticisms it got are worth discussing. So you can go check that out if you'd like. All right, with that, I'm going to send over to John for today's main topic, and I'll be back for my take.

Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend. Let's get straight into it with today's quick hits. First up, President Donald Trump released his National Security Strategy document, outlining his foreign policy vision. The document calls for U.S. supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and increased strength in the Indo-Pacific, while also calling on Europe to address issues related to demographic change. Number two, the Supreme Court announced it will hear arguments on Trump v. Barbara, a case challenging the Trump administration's executive order ending birthright citizenship

in the U.S. separately, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in a challenge to President Trump's attempt to fire Rebecca Slaughter as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. The case could roll back protections against removal for members of independent agencies. Number three, defense secretary Pete Hegeseth said he would not commit to releasing footage of the U.S. military's second strike on an alleged drugboat in the Caribbean in September, which has prompted heightened congressional scrutiny over the past week. Number four, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expects the second phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza to commence soon, though he did not specify the timeline.

And number five, the Trump administration will reportedly announce $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers on Monday afternoon. Most of the package will go toward the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program, which supports U.S. crop farmers. A CDC advisory panel voted to roll back a decades-long recommendation on hepatitis B vaccines for newborn. Yeah, this is a big deal. I mean, the panel suggests that women who test negative for hepatitis B should decide with their doctor whether their baby should get a birth dose of this vaccine. The group also suggesting waiting until at least two months of age for that first dose if the vaccine is not given at birth. On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted 8 to 3 to eliminate a long-standing

recommendation that all newborns receive a first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The committee instead recommended that women who tested negative for hepatitis B should consult with their doctors to determine whether their babies should be given the first dose of the vaccine, suggesting that the initial dose be administered after the infant is at least two months old. The committee voted on the change after it heard presentations from several vaccine critics, no centers for disease control and prevention subject matter experts presented to the panel. For context, ACIP develops recommendations for the CDC on safe vaccine use and the U.S. adult and childhood immunization schedules.

The committee's recommendations also impact which vaccines are covered by insurers and federal health programs. In June, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 committee members, claiming that they were not capable of independently evaluating the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Kennedy has since appointed new members to the ACIP, many of whom have criticized vaccines. Hepatitis B is a virus that can cause liver infection and lead to severe liver damage, liver cancer and death. Prior to Friday's vote, the CDC had recommended for over three decades that infants received the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours to newborns

with infected mothers and within 24 hours to all other newborns. Doctors and public health experts have widely credited the vaccine with curbing the virus's prevalence. A-CIP members who supported the change said that the risk of newborns contracting the virus if their mothers test negative is very low and called for more substantive studies to determine whether the vaccine is safe for newborns, though past studies have found that it is safe. Dr. Tracy Beth Hogg, the acting director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, argued that children should not receive the hepatitis B vaccine at all. Many medical groups, doctors, and public health experts criticized the vote, saying that ACIP has become ideologically driven

under Secretary Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic. Dr. Deborah Ori, who resigned as the CDC's chief medical officer in August, said she was very concerned about the future of the agency under Kennedy, calling it heartbreaking to see this science-driven agency turn into an ideological machine. Others warned that the recommendation change will lead to an uptick in hepatitis B. Acting CDC director Jim O'Neill will decide at a later date whether to accept ACIP's new guidance. President Donald Trump praised the committee's new guidance, calling it a very good decision. He also announced that he had signed a presidential memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a review of childhood vaccine

schedules in other countries and better align the U.S. vaccine schedule so that it is finally rooted in the gold standard of science and common sense. Today, we'll survey arguments from the left and the right about ACIP's vote, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick. break. All right. First up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left criticizes the committee's decision, saying it has no medical justification.

Some suggest ACIP is now steered by ideology, not science. Others, say Kennedy is accomplishing his anti-vaccine goals. In the Washington Post, Leanne S. Wendt said the CDC's change to hepatitis B vaccination is even worse than it seems. On the bright side, the policy doesn't change care for the babies at highest risk. Infants born to mothers known to have hepatitis B will still receive the vaccine, along with a preventative immunoglobulin to reduce the risk of perinatal transmission. And families who want their newborns to receive the hepatitis B shot can still choose it

and have it be covered by insurance, when wrote. But this new approach attempts to solve an issue that doesn't exist. There is no evidence that the birth dose is unsafe, and no evidence that waiting until two months offers any advantage to save, or efficacy. Plus, transmission doesn't just happen mothered a baby. Hepatitis B can spread through casual contact, including shared household items, small amounts of blood or saliva on toys and surfaces. Everyday interactions, such as sharing spoons or cups, handling a baby with microscopic cuts on one's hands, or even inadvertently mixing up toothbrushes, can be enough to transmit

the virus, when said. Universal newborn vaccination has helped drive childhood hepatitis B infections down from 18,000 cases in 1991 to just about 20. Why change a policy that has been so effective? In stat news, Derreet R. Rice argued ACIP is beset by incompetent, bias, and procedural chaos. The committee had several presentations on hepatitis B vaccines, but none were presented by experts in hepatitis B, and none of the work group members, once they were mentioned, were experts in hepatitis B, Rice wrote. It quickly became clear that the presentations were not vetted by anyone with expertise in the subject matter. One presenter, Cynthia Neveson, is a climate researcher who co-authored a retracted paper on vaccines and autism. Another, Mark Blacksill, is a longtime anti-vaccine

activist who, in 2017, tried to convince the Somali community in Minnesota that vaccines cause autism, in the middle of a measles outbreak that hospitalized many of their young, unvaccinated children. Maybe the most glaring example of incompetence was the fact that members asked to delay the vote from Thursday to Friday, because they were not sure what they were voting on. Voting language was put up a few days before the meeting, but was apparently changed multiple times before the meeting, confusing members, Rice said. Since 1964, ACIP gave us careful evidence-based recommendations on vaccines. That is no longer true.

The current ACIP is biased, incompetent, and makes decisions that will harm children and adults. We deserve better. In the bulwark, Jonathan Cohen wrote, this is what it looks like when RFK Jr. wins. Exactly how or when the new hepatitis B vaccine guidelines would change actual behavior is difficult to say. It's not as if anybody forces parents to get their kids vaccinated today. The proof being that some parents declined the hepatitis B shot for their kids already, Cohen said. But there's a reason both supporters and critics of vaccines fight about these guidelines. They really do affect decision-making. They signal to parents what

top scientists believe is the smartest course of action, and they can influence physicians who look to bodies like the CDC to undertake the kind of ongoing, exhaustive literature and research reviews they don't personally have time to do on their own. Kennedy has gone well beyond recruiting some contrarians with novel perspectives. He has populated the advisory committee almost exclusively with people with records of attacking vaccines in one way or another Cohen wrote. The best case scenario is that the health system's collective muscle memory on hepatitis B is strong enough to keep current practices going. But in a highly politicized environment

where the president and the nation's top health care officials are constantly taking down vaccines, some people are bound to take their word seriously. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. Many on the right say the change simply aligns the U.S. other countries. Some argue skepticism about the number of vaccines infants receive is rational. Others say the value of the CDC acting as a vaccine authority is limited. In the daily caller,

Emily Kopp said ACIP's decision aligns childhood vaccination schedule with other high-income nations. The pivot away from a universal shot within hours of birth aligns the U.S. policy with the approach of 24 other high-income nations that recommend a first dose at two months old or three-month-old, copro. Though the American Hepatitis B vaccine schedule now resembles those of other Western nations, and despite the continued availability of the vaccine to all mothers, the legacy media characterized the decision as a reckless upheaval. CDC panel makes most sweeping revision to child vaccine schedule under RFK Jr., a Washington Post headline blayers. All of the committee members agreed that the committee lacks key data on the risks and benefits. The Food and Drug

Administration did not require randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. of the two hepatitis B vaccines that it approved for the first day of life in the 1980s, according to FDA Acting Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Tracy Beth Hoag, cop said. The data that we used to approve the hepatitis B vaccines were based on studies that had a very short-term follow-up and no control group, Hoag said. She identified anaphylaxis and fever as rare side effects. In Red State, Strife argued the change reflects growing concern about the number of vaccines

children receive. Hepatitis is a potentially serious infection that can cause severe liver damage. It is also easily avoidable, but we'd be bad people to bring that up. There is no clear reason why infants are subjected to this vaccination. Hepatitis B can be passed from mother to child at delivery. According to NIH, the prevalence rate of hepatitis B among pregnant women is extraordinarily low, Strife said. Even though about 3.68 million of the approximately 3.7 million babies born will not be at risk for hepatitis B, all of them will get the vaccine. The new ACIP is wary of the number of vaccines mandated for children. By the time your child is 18 months old, they will probably have received a minimum of 26 vaccines,

more if they've had the jobs for influenza, COVID, and some others. There is a growing concern about the effects of these successive assaults on the child's very immature immune system and the downstream effects, Strife said. The most unfortunate outcome of the meeting was the effort of the dissenters to summarily dismiss valid public health and ethical questions about mandatory vaccination, and to paint everybody opposed to the status quo as anti-vax nutters. In Cato, Jeffrey Singer wrote about why medical guidance shouldn't come from Washington. Many professional medical and public health organizations opposed the decision, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American

Public Health Association, and the American Pharmacists Association, as well as numerous clinical researchers and medical specialists, Singer said. This episode, highlights a deeper institutional problem. As I have written previously, members of the medical and scientific community who have long supported an active government role in health issues likely never expected that a controversial figure like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would become the leader of the country's public health system. This underscores why. Congress should return the CDC to its original purpose, being a focused partner that assists states in tracking and controlling infectious diseases. The federal government should leave medical and scientific debates

to scientists and clinicians. By involving itself in these debates, the CDC fosters the impression that there is a single right answer to complex, nuanced questions, Singer wrote. If there is a silver lining, it's that controversies like this may finally encourage clinicians, researchers, and patients to rely less on federal pronouncements and more on diverse, independent medical expertise. All right, that is it for what the left and right are saying, which brings us to what medical professionals are saying. Medical professionals uniformly criticized the change in guidance, saying it has no scientific basis. Others suggest the change will put an undue burden on parents. The American Association of Immunologists said that they were extremely disappointed in the

recommendation change. The science behind the Hepatitis B vaccine is robust and well-established. The hepatitis B vaccine has an exceptional safety record and is extremely effective at preventing lifelong chronic infections in infants who might otherwise be exposed to the virus during childbirth or early life, the group wrote. More than 90% of infants who contracted hepatitis B at or around birth will go on to develop chronic hepatitis B. Of those, roughly one in four, face a premature death from liver disease or liver cancer. The impact this has on families and the health care system can be effectively mitigated with use of vaccines. Delaying the vaccine would mark a dangerous departure from decades of achievement in preventing hepatitis B infection

and its complications. Recent analysis warns that even a modest delay could result in a substantial increase in preventable chronic infections, liver cancers, and deaths. Now is not the time to undermine confidence in one of the most successful vaccine-based public health interventions in modern history. In your local epidemiologist,

Caitlin Jedolina shared her key takeaways from the vote. In the end, the committee voted to move America back to pre-1991 by removing the universal vaccination recommendation for the hepatitis B infant dose despite no new evidence of harm and ignoring clear benefits. They also recommended that parents ask clinicians for an antibody blood test

to determine the need for subsequent doses, even though there's no evidence that this works, Jettelina said. This ultimately shifts the burden to clinicians and parents and abdicates the responsibility of the recommending body. Where this goes from here depends on what happens next. If confusion dominates headlines

and clinical practice and falsehoods fill the void, the consequences could be serious. But if we respond the way we saw many do today, pushing back with clarity, authority, evidence, coordination, and grassroots strength, the harm can be contained and minimized, generally, generally, our work is not done. There will be increasing confusion about evidence-based vaccination options for parents, clinicians, hospital systems, and schools. This will decrease vaccination coverage leading to more disease and unnecessary suffering. All right, let's set over to Isaac for his take.

All right, that is it for the left and the writer saying, which brings us to my take. I have a 10-month-old baby at home. So I'm just going to start by saying, I'm in the thick of the frustration and fear and confusion of the vaccine schedule. As a new parent, even seemingly uncomplicated, decisions. They become complicated. Vaccinate your kids seems obvious enough until you try to do basic research on the safety of a vaccine and get bombarded with stories of kids dying 24 hours after

a shot or internet rumors about how some former voting member of ACIP made millions with big pharma. Even for a professional information consumer like me, separating fact from fiction is a scary and fraught process. This is intensified by the actual experience, holding an infant child down on a table while they get pricked and prodded, them crying in pain, and then often experiencing a day or two of fussiness and fever. Are they okay? What have I done? Was this really worth it, you ask yourself? Since you were listening to a politics podcast right now, I am not going to give you or your children medical advice. Instead, I will speak on my own experience and how some vaccination decisions for children feel less obvious than others. Getting a COVID vaccine for an infant, for instance, did not seem

straightforward. Unlike with other vaccines, our doctor was much less forceful in her opinion about what we should do. COVID vaccines are newer and less tested for infants, and COVID is often less dangerous for young children. My wife had COVID while she was pregnant and our baby breastfed, so he was theoretically getting antibodies from her since she was vaccinated and had the virus. Before our son arrived, my wife and I decided on a process for making decisions like this. We were going to pick one or two trusted sources outside of our medical team and use the information from our doctors combined with those sources to make better informed decisions. That way, we could try to ignore the firehose of information we encounter

every time we open a social media app or turn on the news. For us, the source we leave, on most heavily was Emily Oster, the professional economist behind the bestseller expecting better and the parenting website parent data. She's also somebody who's come on this podcast before, and she makes all of her decisions through a data-first framework. Her educated opinion felt like a nice compliment to the medical advice from our doctors, and she provided a trustworthy single source for the unavoidable questions that pop up during and after pregnancy. To be candid, my wife and I did not seriously consider skipping the hepatitis B vaccine when our son was born. We had decided to lean on the wisdom of my wife's doctor and Oster, who both said

the decision carried close to zero risk and offered only upside. We might have had one drawn-out discussion after our doula told us we could pass on the vaccine when my wife tested negative for the virus, but we didn't see any compelling reason to question the advice of our medical team. So this is the lens through which I've been watching this story unfold. Even though I'm not personally someone who would trust the government guideline above all else, I do think agencies like the CDC must present reliable, clear information for parents navigating these difficult decisions. Unfortunately, after picking all new members for ACIP to ensure vaccine skeptical outcomes like this, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is offering parents like me only more doubt and confusion.

To better understand the effects of the new panel's first major decision, I turn to two public health commentators whose insight I trust, Dr. Liena S. Wend, an open-minded public health expert who backed Kennedy's push to remove fluoride from water, and Caitlin Jettelina, the epidemiologist behind your local epidemiologists. Both were alarmed. Jettelina emphasized that the outcome is not as bad as some headlines make it seem, given that the vaccine will still be widely available and eligible for insurance coverage. yet her trepidation came through.

She offered a worried but optimistic take on how public pressure and a few determined ACIP members were able to push back on the flimsyness of some of the claims presented to the committee and prevent a far worse outcome. When, instead, focus mostly on the practical effects of the new guideline outcome that parents will now be asked to test antibody levels

in their children after the first of the vaccine's three-dose series. After our two-day stay in the hospital, after our son was born, we had a one-month checkup, a three-month check-up, and a six-month check-up. Paired with a couple of visits for a rash here or a fever there and various follow-ups with individual specialists, parents of even a healthy baby, already end up going to the doctor eight or ten times in the first ten months. Adding another infant blood draw, another doctor's appointment, and more cost to the already overwhelming early infancy is to me pretty preposterous. Meanwhile, I found the counterpoints of this view unconvincing.

Some writers claim the vaccine addresses a non-existent risk. The blogger's streif, under what the right is saying, said every expectant mother is tested for the virus when she is admitted for delivery, and if she is positive, the infant can be vaccinated then. This simply is not true. The CDC recommends testing in the first trimester, not at delivery, and many mothers, including my wife, are only tested for hepatitis early on in pregnancy. That test is consulted during delivery, but a new test is often not administered if the mother was negative. That means new mothers could have become carriers for the virus and without knowing it. Many commentators have also emphasized that this new guidance brings us in line with many other peer nations, but those nations are not really our peers when it comes to health care or population.

Denmark, for instance, has universal health care, more consistent prenatal care, and a population that is much smaller and far less diverse than ours. The population differences alone demand a different approach. Denmark's incidence of hepatitis B is going up, and the rate of virus among the migrant population is higher than among the native-born population. Here in the U.S., with a very different health care system overseeing a much larger and more diverse population,

is not really comparing apples to apples. Again, I'll reemphasize that my perspective is not expert and that a variety of expert viewpoints is good for new parents. Secretary Kennedy often promotes a similar message. But the actions of the department he leads actually shut down genuine scientific exchange of ideas, which to me is the most frightening aspect of ACIP's decision. For their latest meeting, Kennedy broke from tradition by refusing to allow presentations from CDC subject matter experts. So while scientists who study the hepatitis B vaccine for a living were shut out from deliberations,

a lawyer and longtime Kennedy ally named Aaron Siri, who has petitioned the government to stop distributing the polio vaccine was able to state his case. This is decidedly not scientific debate. It's working towards a preordained outcome. And while this particular outcome is not the worst case scenario, it is another very worrying step of Kennedy's Health Department, and it will have real practical implications for parents and infants who are unlucky enough to encounter hepatitis B in the coming years. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answer.

This one's from Adam in Denver, Colorado. Adam said, is Pete Hegessef, the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War? Is that renaming official? If so, why does Tangle not use it? Okay, so great question, by the way. In a sense, he's both, and no, the rename is not official. In the White House is September 5th fact sheet, announcing the Trump administration's restoration of the name Department of War,

the title is officially stated to be secondary. A secondary title is one that agencies can use to refer to themselves in official government communications and often matches their already utilized informal names. They're usually just inversions like Justice Department instead of Department of Justice or abbreviations like DOE, for Department of Energy. Only Congress has the authority to officially rename a federal department or agency. At Tangle, we have a policy of using the official name of the department

as a default, but we often use informal titles, so our reporting sounds more natural and less repetitive. For example, we might occasionally refer the Department of Defense as the Pentagon, the department's headquarters, and we could refer to the Central Intelligence Agency as Langley, the Virginia City, where CIA is headquartered. When it comes to a person's title, we're always going to use the official names. That means we're not going to write Secretary of War just as we never write Secretary of the Pentagon. We could broaden the scope and ask a tougher question. Would Tangle ever write the Department of War? Maybe, but it's trickier for us to adopt. First, informal names are often determined by popular usage, not top-down dictum, so we're often

resistant to follow a government order to change a title we've been using without issue all our lives. Second, the Department of Defense has a history behind its name. The Department of War that existed from 1789 to 1947 is actually not the same as the modern DOD. At first, that agency only oversaw the Army while the Navy had its own cabinet-level department. President Trump consolidated the departments along with the new Air Force under the National Military Establishment Act in 1947. Then he restructured them again into the Department of Defense in 1949. The change also emphasized the military's use as a deterrent and de-emphasized war as a cabinet-level pursuit for our government. So, bringing back the older title seems like a step in the other direction.

Maybe we'll write it occasionally, but it's not a title we're eager to employ. All right, that is it for your questions answered. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Have a good one. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. Here's her under the radar story for today, folks. Last week, U.S. Steel announced that it had plans to resume steel making at a facility in Southwestern Illinois that had not produced steel for two years. The company had planned to continue reducing operations at the plant before the Trump administration intervened to block that move in September. U.S. Steel now says that demand for steel has risen enough to warrant a restart in production, particularly as the company completes renovations at other steel mills. We are confident

in our ability to safely and profitably operate the mill to meet 2026 demand, U.S. Steel, CEO David Burritt said. The Wall Street Journal has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right. Next up is our numbers section. The year the hepatitis B vaccine was discovered was 1965. The year the Food and Drug Administration approved the first hepatitis B vaccine for human use was 1981.

The percent decrease in pediatric hepatitis B incidents since 1991 is 99%. The approximate number of babies born to women with hepatitis B annually in the U.S. is 17,000. The approximate percentage of liver cancer globally that is caused by chronic hepatitis B and C is 80%. According to an October 2025 Pew Research Survey, 63% of U.S. adults say they are highly confident that childhood vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness. According to a July-August KFF Washington Post survey, 5% of U.S. parents reported that they skipped. the hepatitis B vaccine for at least one of their children, and 4% said they delayed the hepatitis B vaccine for at least one of their children. 8% of U.S. parents who called themselves supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement reported that they skipped the hepatitis B vaccine

for at least one of their children, and 5% of U.S. parents who called themselves supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement reported they delayed the hepatitis B vaccine for at least one of their children. And last but not least, R Have a Nice Day story. Roughly 40% of families in the Standing Rock Reservation live below the poverty line. Tribal-owned energy group Sage had an idea for an initiative to return investment, promoting electric vehicle access to the rural community where gas prices significantly raised a cost of living. Through a regional initiative called Electric Nation, Sage spent three years installing EV chargers

along the border of North and South Dakota, and the project wrapped at the end of November. Even though tribes have been skipped over and underfunded, They've become a keystone to filling in infrastructure gaps in rural America. Len Nesver, a Navajo citizen and energy expert, said, The New York Times has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to retangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership, podcast membership,

or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback

and associate editors Hunter Asperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com. I'm sorry.