WASHINGTON — A federal vaccine advisory committee voted Friday to end the longstanding recommendation that all U.S. babies get the hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re born.

Newborn hepatitis B vaccinations are widely considered to be a public health success story. Over about 30 years, cases among children fell from about 18,000 per year to about 2,200.

But U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided to recommend the birth dose only for babies whose mothers test positive, and in cases where the mom wasn’t tested.

For other babies, it will be up to the parents and their doctors to decide if a birth dose is appropriate. The committee voted to suggest that when a family decides not to get a birth dose, then the vaccination serie

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