Robert Malone Debunks Hepatitis B Myths

Important new clip from my podcast with Robert Malone.

How History Got Lost: Malone on Hepatitis B, Immigration, and the Origins of the Newborn Birth Dose

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In another revealing section of my conversation with Dr. Robert Malone, we turned to one of the most emotionally charged elements of the childhood vaccine schedule: the universal hepatitis B birth dose.

Malone began by criticizing how the CDC has historically framed hepatitis B vaccine effectiveness.

Rather than examining long-term epidemiological trends, he argued, policymakers focused on narrow, recent time windows, ignoring what actually triggered the original hepatitis B surge in the United States—and how it resolved.

“They didn’t look back to when the surge actually happened,” Malone said.
“They didn’t follow the age cohorts forward in time.”

That omission, he argued, fundamentally distorted the policy logic.

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Vietnam, Immigration, and the Real Hepatitis B Surge

According to Malone, the modern hepatitis B story in the U.S. begins not with newborns—but with geopolitics.

Hepatitis B is endemic in parts of Southeast Asia, as well as regions of India and Pakistan. Following the collapse of the Vietnam War, the U.S. accepted large numbers of Vietnamese and Cambodian families who had supported American military efforts.

With that humanitarian resettlement came a large burden of hepatitis B infection—and a measurable spike in national incidence.

This, Malone said, is the historical context that is often left out.

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Declines Before the Vaccine

When analysts extend the timeline far enough back, Malone argued, something striking emerges:

Hepatitis B incidence was already declining sharply before the modern vaccine program was implemented.

Why?

Because of what public health once relied on most: non-pharmaceutical interventions.

Sanitation improvements, behavioral changes, and targeted interventions historically account for much of the decline in infectious disease—contrary to what Malone described as the “false narrative” that vaccines alone are responsible for nearly all reductions.

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Targeting Risk—And Succeeding

Early hepatitis B vaccination efforts, Malone explained, were not universal. They were targeted.

High-risk populations—particularly:

• Individuals with high-risk sexual behavior

• Injection drug users

• Recently arrived immigrants from endemic regions

The results, according to CDC data presented at a recent ACIP meeting, were dramatic:

• Incidence in adult high-risk cohorts collapsed

• Most of the national reduction occurred in older age groups

• Infant and childhood hepatitis B incidence was already extremely low

In other words, the surge was driven by adults—and resolved primarily by targeting adults.

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Why the Birth Dose Happened Anyway

So why move to vaccinating every newborn?

Malone pointed to contemporaneous reporting by the New York Times, which—he says—documented the reasoning plainly at the time.

Public health authorities were frustrated.

They could not achieve universal compliance among high-risk adults.

So the logic became:

“If we can’t get them as adults, we have to get them as newborns.”

That—not infant risk—was the core rationale for implementing the universal birth dose, according to Malone.

He argued this decision was made before long-term data were available, reflecting a broader pattern he sees with ACIP: acting first, justifying later.

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Fear-Based Forecasts vs. Historical Reality

At recent ACIP meetings, Malone noted, representatives from various medical guilds warned that changing hepatitis B recommendations could lead to thousands of children contracting the disease.

But historically, he said, that claim doesn’t hold up.

“It’s never been thousands of children getting hepatitis B in the United States,” Malone stated.
“So it’s hard to imagine how that suddenly starts happening.”

He characterized such claims as fear-based messaging, untethered from actual incidence data—and suggested they often coincide with organizations that receive substantial funding from pharmaceutical manufacturers.

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A Comparative Reality Check

I added a brief international comparison: in Canada, there is no universal hepatitis B birth dose for infants born to mothers who test negative.

Malone responded with dry irony—highlighting how apocalyptic predictions rarely materialize when universal birth dosing is absent.

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The Larger Pattern

Taken together, Malone’s argument isn’t simply about hepatitis B.

It’s about how:

• Historical context gets erased

• Incomplete datasets drive permanent policy

• Fear substitutes for evidence

• Frustration leads to coercion

Whether one agrees with his conclusions or not, the critique forces an uncomfortable question:

Are long-standing medical policies being defended because they’re evidence-based—or because reversing them would require admitting how they began?

As debates over the childhood vaccine schedule intensify, Malone’s reconstruction of the hepatitis B story suggests that some of today’s fiercest controversies may be rooted not in science—but in forgotten history.

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