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.

Illinois lawmakers passed two dozen bills during their annual fall veto session that ended Friday, Oct. 31, including a measure that will empower the state’s Department of Public Health to issue vaccine guidelines amid federal uncertainty.

Nearly all the mpox cases in Chicago this year have been among males, and most who have provided their sexual orientation identify as gay or bisexual, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.

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.

Chicago and suburban Cook County residents will have opportunities Saturday and through the next several months to receive free flu and COVID-19 shots, as local public health departments roll out their immunization outreach efforts.

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.

It’s not yet clear when military troops could be deployed into Illinois, but Gov. JB Pritzker expects President Donald Trump to “keep the militarization going” even after the federal government shut down overnight.

The rambling announcement, which appeared to rely on existing studies rather than significant new research, comes as the Make America Healthy Again movement has been pushing for answers on the causes of autism.

In a series of votes, advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t specifically recommend vaccination but said people could make individual decisions.

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.

“This is about making sure no family in Illinois is left wondering if they can protect themselves against preventable serious illness,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “When the federal government abandons its responsibility, Illinois will step up.”

The latest COVID-19 vaccines were approved for people who are 65 and older or have certain health conditions. But medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics — and some states — are breaking from the federal guidelines by expanding their recommendations.

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.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on people’s rights bordering on “slavery.”