ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - A federal advisory panel that guides the nation’s vaccine schedule is weighing major changes to childhood immunizations, sparking concern among doctors and public health groups in Georgia and across the country.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, met Thursday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Chamblee campus to consider recommendations on the hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella vaccines.

The panel advised that the vaccine known as MMRV not be given before age 4 and that children in this age group instead get separate vaccines — one against MMR and another for varicella, or chickenpox. The vote was 8-3, with one member abstaining.

For more than three decades, infants have received a hepatitis B shot at birt

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