The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will recommend fewer vaccines for most American children, health officials said Monday.

Flu activity in suburban Cook County jumped from “low” to “high” during the week ending in Dec. 20, according to health officials. Chicago’s public health department reported “high” levels of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for flu late last week.

Illinois health officials are maintaining their stance that all newborns should receive a hepatitis B vaccination, days after federal vaccine advisors voted to remove a similar recommendation.

For decades, the government has advised that all babies be vaccinated against the liver infection right after birth. The shots are widely considered to be a public health success for preventing thousands of illnesses.

An advisory committee overseen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine advisory board will meet Thursday to discuss the medical guidance of the hepatitis B vaccine, which is currently given at birth.

The bill signing comes ahead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee meeting later this week for an expected vote on potential changes to the childhood vaccination schedule and how hepatitis B shots are administered.

The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.

The formation of the group touches off a new chapter in a partisan battle over public health measures that has been heightened by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s advisers declining to recommend COVID-19 vaccinations.

Before this year, U.S. health officials — following recommendations by infectious disease experts — recommended annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older.

Antimicrobial resistance occurs when germs such as bacteria and fungi gain the power to fight off the drugs designed to kill them. The misuse of antibiotics was a big reason for the rise — unfinished or unnecessary prescriptions that didn’t kill the germs made them stronger.

Dr. Richard Frye told The Associated Press that he’d been talking with federal regulators about developing his own customized version of the drug for children with autism, assuming more research would be required.

The recommendation bucks new and murky guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that recommend vaccines only for people ages 65 and older.

Describing extraordinary turmoil inside the nation’s health agencies, Monarez and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Chief Debra Houry described exchanges in which Kennedy or political advisers rebuffed data supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides. But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is experiencing chaos unlike anything ever seen before. Meanwhile, there’s also growing concern in the medical community over changing vaccine guidelines and the cancellation of cutting-edge vaccine research.

Top officials who resigned their positions at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after the ouster of the agency’s director were escorted out of the building Thursday morning.