Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu Asks Why Babies Need Hepatitis B Shots, Gets Educated by The Liver Doc

Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of software company Zoho, has raised eyebrows with his recent questioning of hepatitis B injections for kids. On X (formerly Twitter), Vembu asked why children are administered these injections. While Vembu clarified that he is not anti-science, his comments were met with criticism from users who accused him of spreading fear and misinformation. However, the billionaire entrepreneur received guidance from medical experts, including Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a renowned liver specialist known as The Liver Doc.

Vembu responded to a post that said infants don’t really need the hepatitis B vaccine by writing, “Why are such young babies given vaccines such as Hepatitis B? It is not anti-vax or anti-science to ask such common sense questions. The very idea of science is to question dogma and vaccines have become near dogma now.”

In answering Vembu’s query, Dr Philips provided a thorough and in-depth commentary on Hepatitis B. He clarified that the newborn who contracts the hepatitis B virus usually does so by passing through the delivery canal.

He said that kids born to a woman infected with hepatitis B have a 90% probability of developing chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and liver cancer—illness that is fatal.

The Liver Doc went on to say that since there was no recommendation for Hepatitis B vaccinations for children prior to 1991. Around 18,000 children under the age of ten would contract the virus annually back then.

The Liver Doc went on to explain that sexual contact is not the only way the virus spreads.

According to him, around half of those kids got the hepatitis B virus from their mothers through the birth canal, while the other half contracted it through very seldom contact.

“Got it when a family member came, who was a silent carrier of hepatitis B, but didn’t know it, and then kissed the child. Or got it from sharing toothbrushes with somebody who had hepatitis B at school camp,” he mentioned.

The doctor emphasised that since the 1991 prescription for hepatitis B birth doses, medical experts had almost eradicated the illness in those under the age of 19.

He went on to emphasise the significance of vaccination infants against Hepatitis B by saying that they prevented millions of people from dying from cancer and liver illness across entire generations.

In conclusion, he said that several nations, including India, have included vaccinations against hepatitis B virus infections in their national health policies, and “rightly so”.