Alaska

U.S. tsunami warning system, reeling from funding and staffing cuts, is dealt another blow

Published

4 weeks ago

November 8, 2025

U.S. tsunami warning system, reeling from funding and staffing cuts, is dealt another blow

Nine seismic stations in Alaska are set to go dark this month, leaving tsunami forecasters without important data used to determine whether an earthquake will send a destructive wave barreling toward the West Coast.

The stations relied on a federal grant that lapsed last year; this fall, the Trump administration declined to renew it. Data from the stations helps researchers determine the magnitude and shape of earthquakes along the Alaskan Subduction Zone, a fault that can produce some of the most powerful quakes in the world and put California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii at risk.

Losing the stations could lead Alaska’s coastal communities to receive delayed notice of an impending tsunami, according to Michael West, the director of the Alaska Earthquake Center. And communities farther away, like in Washington state, could get a less precise forecast.

“In sheer statistics, the last domestic tsunami came from Alaska, and the next one likely will,” he said.

It’s the latest blow to the U.S.’ tsunami warning system, which was already struggling with disinvestment and understaffing. Researchers said they are concerned that the network is beginning to crumble.

“All the things in the tsunami warning system are going backwards,” West said. “There’s a compound problem.”

The U.S. has two tsunami warning centers — one in Palmer, Alaska, and the other in Honolulu — that operate around-the-clock making predictions that help emergency managers determine whether coastal evacuations are necessary after an earthquake. The data from Alaska’s seismic stations has historically fed into the centers.

Both centers are already short-staffed. Of the 20 full-time positions at the center in Alaska, only 11 are currently filled, according to Tom Fahy, the union legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. In Hawaii, four of the 16 roles are open. (Both locations are in the process of hiring scientists, Fahy said.)

Additionally, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has decreased funding for the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which pays for the majority of states’ tsunami risk reduction work. The agency provided $4 million in 2025 — far less than the $6 million it has historically offered.

“It’s on life support,” West said of the program.

A tsunami evacuation route sign in Bolinas, Calif.Stephen Lam / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images file

On top of that, NOAA laid off the National Weather Service’s tsunami program manager, Corina Allen, as part of the Trump administration’s firing of probationary workers in February, according to Harold Tobin, the Washington state seismologist. Allen, who had recently started at the agency, declined to comment via a spokesperson for her new employer, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

These recent cuts have played out amid the Trump administration’s broader efforts to slash federal spending on science and climate research, among other areas. NOAA fired hundreds of workers in February, curtailed weather balloon launches and halted research on the costs of climate and weather disasters, among other cuts.

Most of the seismic stations being shut down in Alaska are in remote areas of the Aleutian Islands, West said. The chain extends west from the Alaskan Peninsula toward Russia, tracing an underwater subduction zone. KHNS, a public radio station in Alaska, first reported the news that the stations would be taken offline.

A NOAA grant for about $300,000 each year had supported the stations. The Alaska Earthquake Center requested new grant funding through 2028, but it was denied, according to an email between West and NOAA staffers that was viewed by NBC News.

Kim Doster, a NOAA spokeswoman, said the federal agency stopped providing the money in 2024 under the Biden administration. In the spring, the University of Alaska Fairbanks ponied up funds to keep the program going for another year, believing that the federal government would ultimately cover the cost, said Uma Bhatt, a University of Alaska Fairbanks professor and associate director of the research institute that administered the grant. But new funds never materialized.

“The loss of these observations does not prevent the Tsunami Warning Center from being able to carry out its mission,” Doster said. “The AEC [Alaska Earthquake Center] is one of many partners supporting the National Weather Service’s tsunami operations, and NWS continues to use many mechanisms to ensure the collection of seismic data across the state of Alaska.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

West said the Alaska Earthquake Center provides the majority of data used for tsunami warnings in the state. The grant that supported the nine seismic stations also funded a data feed with information from the center’s other sensors, according to West. The national tsunami warning centers will no longer have direct access to the feed.

West said the stations on the Aleutian Islands cover a huge geographic range.

“There’s nothing else around,” he said. “It’s not like there’s another instrument 20 miles down the road. There’s no road.”

The plan is to abandon the stations later this month and leave their equipment in place, West added.

Tobin, in Washington state, said he worries that the closures “could delay or degrade the quality of tsunami warnings.”

“This is a region that’s sparsely monitored. We kind of need to have a stethoscope on this region,” he said, adding: “These programs are in the background until a big, terrible event happens.”

The Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone is one of the most active faults in the world and has produced significant tsunamis in the past. In 1964, a tsunami produced by a magnitude-9.2 earthquake killed 124 people, including 13 in California and five in Oregon, according to NOAA. Most of the California deaths were in Crescent City, where a 21-foot wave destroyed 29 city blocks, according to the city’s website.

Tsunami experts said the stations in the Aleutian Islands are critical in quickly understanding nearby earthquakes. The closer a quake is to a sensor, the less uncertainty about a subsequent tsunami.

NOAA’s tsunami warning centers aim to put out an initial forecast within five minutes, West said, which is critical for local communities. (A strong earthquake in the Aleutian Islands could send an initial wave into nearby Alaskan communities within minutes.) The only data available quickly enough to inform those initial forecasts comes from seismic signals (rather than tide gauges or pressure sensors attached to buoys).

The warning centers then put out a more specific forecast of wave heights after about 40 minutes. Daniel Eungard, the tsunami program lead for the Washington Geological Survey, said that not having the Alaska sensors would create more uncertainty about the heights of waves expected, complicating decisions about whether to evacuate along the Washington coastline.

“We try not to over-evacuate,” he said, adding that it costs time, money and trust if warnings prove unnecessary.

Over the last year, the national tsunami warning centers have had their hands full. A magnitude-7.0 earthquake near Cape Mendocino, California, triggered tsunami alerts along the state’s coast in December. In July, a magnitude-8.8 quake off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula prompted a widespread alert along the U.S. West Coast. The peninsula is just west of the Aleutian Islands.

NOAA helped build many of the seismic stations that have been part of the Alaska Earthquake Center’s network. But West said the agency has decreased its support over the past two decades; nine NOAA-built stations were decommissioned in 2013.

“It’s now or never to decide whether or not NOAA is part of this,” he said. “What I really want to do is spark a discussion about tsunami efforts in the U.S. and have that not be triggered by the next devastating tsunami.”

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Alaska

Alaska Sports Scoreboard: Dec. 6, 2025

Published

2 hours ago

December 7, 2025

Press Room

Wrangell’s Alana Harrison, center, huddles with her teammates in a game against Unalaska in the girls volleyball 2A state tournament at Dimond High School on December 4, 2025. (Marc Lester / ADN)

High School

Hockey

Tuesday

Monroe Catholic 8, Lathrop 3

West 3, Wasilla 1

South 2, Dimond 0

Wednesday

North Pole 9, West Valley 6

Delta 6, Monroe Catholic 5

West 1, Chugiak 0

Thursday

Palmer 5, Kenai Central 2

North Pole 8, Colony 2

Friday

Palmer 6, Soldotna 0

West Valley 7, Colony 2

Juneau-Douglas 4, Kenai Central 2

Kodiak 6, Service 3

Dimond 3, Eagle River 0

Saturday

Service 4, Kodiak 3

Juneau-Douglas 8, Kenai Central 2

Palmer 14, Homer 2

Wasilla 6, Chugiak 3

• • •

Volleyball

Thursday

Nelson Island 2, SISD 0 (25-20, 25-15)

Susitna Valley 3, Metlakatla 0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-14)

Martin L Olson 2, Nunamiut 1 (25-14, 23-25, 25-21)

Dillingham 3, Glennallen 1 (19-25, 25-18, 25-17, 25-23)

Shaktoolik 2, Gustavus 1 (25-12, 22-25, 25-15)

Sand Point 3, Tri-Valley 0 (25-17, 25-17, 25-13)

Aniak 2, Emmonak 0 (25-15, 25-11)

Tanalian 2, Nelson Island 0 (25-15, 25-18)

Unalaska 3, Wrangell 0 (25-13, 25-23, 25-20)

Martin L Olson 2, Scammon Bay 0 (25-13, 25-14)

Susitna Valley 3, Dillingham 1 (25-9, 23-25, 25-15, 25-21)

Shaktoolik 2, Anchor Lutheran 0 (25-9, 25-17)

Kisimgiugtuq 2, Aniak 0 (28-25, 25-20)

Unalaska 3, Sand Point 0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-23)

Tanalian’s Erik McGee and Warren Davis reach for a block on Nelson Island’s Gordon Pitka in the mixed six volleyball state tournament at Dimond High School on December 4, 2025. (Marc Lester / ADN)

Friday

Scammon Bay 2, Gustavus 1 (20-25, 25-21, 25-17)

Nelson Island 2, Emmonak 0 (25-23, 25-18)

Metlakatla 3, Glennallen 0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-12)

Aniak 2, SISD 0 (25-16, 25-20)

Nunamiut 2, Anchor Lutheran 0 (25-13, 25-5)

Nunamiut 2, Aniak 0 (25-22, 25-16)

Nelson Island 2, Scammon Bay 1 (25-10, 23-25, 25-0)

Wrangell 3, Tri-Valley 1 (25-27, 25-23, 25-18, 25-10)

Tanalian 3, Martin L Olson 1 (25-13, 8-25, 25-22, 25-23)

Shaktoolik 3, Kisimgiugtuq 0 (25-14, 25-5, 25-15)

Sand Point 3, Metlakatla 0 (25-20, 25-20, 26-24)

Nelson Island 2, Kisimgiugtuq 0 (25-13, 25-10)

Martin L Olson 2, Nunamiut 1 (25-27, 25-16, 26-24)

Tanalian 3, Shaktoolik 1 (25-20, 17-25, 25-19, 25-23)

Unalaska 3, Susitna Valley 1 (23-25, 25-23, 25-22, 25-22)

Wrangell 3, Dillingham 2 (16-25, 25-21, 25-21, 20-25, 15-9)

Sand Point 3, Wrangell 0 (25-14, 25-21, 25-18)

Saturday

Martin L Olson 2, Nelson Island 0 (25-16, 25-21)

Martin L Olson 2, Shaktoolik 0 (25-22, 25-21)

Susitna Valley 3, Sand Point 1 (25-17, 17-25, 25-21, 25-17)

Tanalian 3, Martin L Olson 1 (27-25, 23-25, 25-22, 28-26)

Unalaska vs. Susitna Valley (Late)

• • •

Wrestling

Tuesday

Dimond 55, Bartlett 47

Boys – 145: Prince Bonilla (5-15), Dimond over Benjamin Fudge (13-14), Bartlett (F 3:48)

Boys – 135: Taven Carbaugh (12-13), Dimond over Aurelius Atwood (4-12), Bartlett (F 5:51)

Boys – 119: Yeng Lao (17-6), Bartlett over Joshawa McCorkle (3-22), Dimond (TF 19-3 (3:03)

Boys – 285: Denver Spencer (17-11), Bartlett over Juan Hernandez (0-0), Dimond (F 1:26)

Boys – 215: Jayce Casarez (10-4), Bartlett over Creed Cvancara (12-5), Dimond (F 3:30)

Boys – 189: Donald Goss (0-4), Bartlett over Tristan Mason (5-23), Dimond (F 4:21)

Boys – 171: Everett Monteil (6-7), Dimond over Alton Drones (4-6), Bartlett (TF 18-1 (4:33)

Boys – 160: Yaroslav Ustymenko (16-16), Dimond over Jonny Larsen (6-6), Bartlett (SV 7-4)

Boys – 152: Keller Jackson (18-6), Dimond over Isiah Anaruk (16-10), Bartlett (F 5:12)

Girls – 126: Nyah O`Neil (17-5), Dimond over Teresa Vicens (8-6), Bartlett (TF 17-2 (3:48)

Girls – 100: Kaylee Kofford (22-6), Bartlett over Aoife Stout (13-7), Dimond (F 3:56)

Chugiak 62, Eagle River 46

Boys – 135: Lukas Nuxall (7-5), Chugiak over Izzak Alonzo (7-18), Eagle River (F 3:59)

Boys – 130: Jacob Driscoll (23-10), Eagle River over Briar Otts (4-8), Chugiak (F 0:56)

Boys – 119: Archer Hicks (17-12), Chugiak over Wyatt Zeiler (14-8), Eagle River (MD 9-1)

Boys – 112: Oliver Dunlavey (13-13), Chugiak over Aiden Smith (7-6), Eagle River (F 0:44)

Boys – 103: Tanner Bailey (16-11), Chugiak over Grant Brunner (14-12), Eagle River (Dec 11-4)

Boys – 215: Braden Ott (16-5), Eagle River over Oliver Stoltze (6-6), Chugiak (F 2:42)

Boys – 189: Bryson Diola (16-1), Eagle River over Morgan Robinson (4-3), Chugiak (F 5:02)

Boys – 171: Elias Rimbert (20-6), Chugiak over Gavin Wiess (27-10), Eagle River (MD 17-5)

Boys – 160: Richard Dunlavey (21-8), Chugiak over Vern Stott (5-11), Eagle River (F 2:34)

Boys – 152: Kamdon Marchant (13-8), Chugiak over Caleb Driscoll (24-15), Eagle River (Dec 9-5)

Boys – 145: Michael Roschi (16-0), Eagle River over Mason Scow (9-12), Chugiak (F 1:46)

Boys – 140: August Rogers (16-17), Eagle River over Brock Baker (2-9), Chugiak (F 4:46)

Girls – 126: Sabreena Otts (29-8), Chugiak over Cheyenne Bobo (0-0), Eagle River (F 2:36)

Girls – 114: Talia Jenkins (22-5), Chugiak over Lillian Dwyer (17-18), Eagle River (F 3:06)

Girls – 107: Rylee Ruggles (17-6), Chugiak over Violet Roschi (29-9), Eagle River (F 5:44)

Girls – 152: Lily Boze (13-10), Eagle River over Ereale Campbell (15-17), Chugiak (Dec 6-0)

South 122, Service 24

Boys – 189: Bohdan Porter (25-4), South over Lucas Witwer (13-17), Service (F 2:00)

Boys – 152: Shane Ostermiller (19-2), South over Lucas Gross (0-1), Service (F 1:25)

Boys – 140: Benson Mishler (21-2), South over Braiden Sanchez (15-9), Service (MD 19-6)

Boys – 135: Shaw Gerondale (20-4), South over Mason Childress (8-10), Service (F 1:36)

Boys – 130: Dylan Frawner (19-6), South over Urijah Eppelsheimer (10-6), Service (TF 16-0 (2:38)

Girls – 152: Savannah Stout (27-2), South over Julie Ishnook (17-13), Service (TF 20-3 (2:21)

Girls – 114: Julia Dunlap (32-6), South over Scarlett Easton (28-12), Service (Dec 8-5)

Girls – 100: Ava Rogers (11-9), South over Rebekah Ellsworth (5-11), Service (Dec 8-1)

West 75, Bettye Davis East 53

Boys – 285: Matt Manumalealii (0-0), West over Jerome Keil-Mano (5-2), East (F 3:29)

Boys – 215: Aiden Luzano (2-8), West over Scottie Saechao (1-0), East (F 0:58)

Boys – 189: Ezekiel Alabado (2-4), East over Declan Gee (7-12), West (Dec 6-4)

Boys – 171: Ryder Thomas (11-7), West over Kalek Donnelly (8-5), East (F 1:00)

Boys – 160: Lucas Starck (15-4), West over Julian Ferreira (7-8), East (F 2:00)

Boys – 152: Liam Ferreira (6-7), East over Chris Espina (4-12), West (Dec 11-8)

Boys – 145: Damien Ambrose (14-9), West over Levi Hanks (2-2), East (F 3:33)

Boys – 140: Ramon armenta (6-3), East over Gage Williams (3-9), West (F 3:56)

Boys – 135: Mason Rhude (7-12), West over Warren Smallwood (4-1), East (SV 13-10)

Boys – 119: Jerriel Medina-Salazar (3-3), West over Eranda Dissanayake (1-0), East (F 4:35)

Boys – 112: Colter Campbell (13-1), East over Juan Rojas Arismendy (11-3), West (TF 19-2 (2:13)

Girls – 165: Kenya-Marie Bruno (17-2), East over Laura Souza (1-4), West (F 0:49)

Girls – 145: Bridey Lee Piscoya (6-10), West over Victoria Orozco (6-4), East (F 3:36)

Girls – 132: Lily Oldham (18-7), West over Aniyah Smalley (5-5), East (F 1:51)

Girls – 120: Ivy Shanklin (3-9), West over Molly Antijunti (0-1), East (F 5:13)

• • •

College

Volleyball

Thursday

UAF 3, UAA 0 (25-21, 25-18, 25-15)

Friday

Point Loma 3, UAF 1 (25-22, 25-20, 20-25, 25-18)

• • •

Women’s basketball

Thursday

Western Oregon 82, UAF 24

Saint Martin’s 69, UAA 60

Saturday

Saint Martin’s 74, UAF 37

Western Oregon 77, UAA 69

• • •

Men’s basketball

Thursday

Saint Martin’s 78, UAA 63

UAF 80, Western Oregon 70

Saturday

Saint Martin’s 66, UAF 56

UAA 64, Western Oregon 56

• • •

Hockey

Friday

Stonehill 3, UAA 2

Saturday

UAA vs. Stonehill (Late)

UAF vs. Grand Canyon (Late)

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Alaska

Howling Mat-Su winds leave thousands without power

Published

14 hours ago

December 6, 2025

Press Room

Howling Mat-Su winds leave thousands without power

PALMER — High winds knocked out power for thousands in Mat-Su on Saturday morning with gusts forecast up to 80 mph in places before the weekend ends.

As of 9 a.m., there were nearly 17,000 members without power, according to Matanuska Electric Association. Major outages included Knik-Goose Bay and Fairview Loop roads. Another large outage knocked out more than 2,000 members from Palmer to Hatcher Pass.

There were reports of trees down on some side roads and damaged railroad crossing gates, as well as at least one small brush fire sparked by a downed power line.

By 10 a.m., the Palmer Airport had recorded a gust of 84 mph while the Wasilla Airport and the Glenn Highway near the Parks Highway had seen gusts of between 70 and 74 mph, according to weather station observations.

A high wind warning from the National Weather Service is in place until 11 p.m. Sunday for the Matanuska Valley including Wasilla, Sutton, Big Lake, Chickaloon and Palmer. The warning calls for northeast winds of 30 to 40 mph with possible gusts up to 80 mph. Wind chill could drop to between minus 10 and minus 20 degrees by Sunday evening, the agency said.

Power outages began early Saturday morning.

“We have multiple crews out in the field and are calling in more as they become available. Winds are not expected to die down today and will last into at least tomorrow evening,” Matanuska Electric Association said in a Facebook post, encouraging people to avoid downed power lines. “Please stay safe – there is a lot of debris scattered outside.”

Wasilla police warned that numerous traffic signals were dark Saturday morning due to power outages. The Matanuska-Susitna Borough announced the central landfill near Palmer is closed Saturday due to high winds.Palmer airport officials on Friday urged pilots to secure all aircraft.

A high wind advisory for the Anchorage area and the northwest Kenai Peninsula — including Nikiski, Kenai, Soldotna and Sterling — remains in effect until 11 p.m. Sunday. Forecasters expected north winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts up to 50, and wind chill dropping to between minus 5 and minus 15 by Sunday night. Knik Arm, West Anchorage and areas along the coast of northern Cook Inlet were likely to experience the strongest winds, according to the advisory.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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Alaska

Hepatitis vaccines credited as life-saving for Alaska children may be upended

Published

1 day ago

December 6, 2025

Press Room

Hepatitis vaccines credited as life-saving for Alaska children may be upended

Dr. Brian McMahon, medical and research director of the liver and hepatitis program at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, stands outside at the consortium’s campus on Oct. 8. (Yereth Rosen / Alaska Beacon)

Western Alaska, where almost all the residents are Indigenous, used to have the world’s highest rate of childhood liver cancer caused by hepatitis B. After decades of screenings and vaccinations, that problem has been eliminated; since 1995, only one person under the age of 30 has been diagnosed with hepatitis-caused cancer.

Now the Trump administration is seeking to end one of the key tools credited with accomplishing that goal: hepatitis B vaccinations of newborns.

The federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Friday voted to drop a longstanding recommendation for universal hepatitis vaccines for newborns. That is in accordance with the controversial views of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who fired all members of the previous committee and appointed like-minded members to replace them.

Current federal childhood hepatitis B vaccination guidelines recommend one dose of the vaccine at birth, followed by additional doses at intervals through 18 months. The recommendation for newborn vaccinations has been in place since 1991.

The advisory committee, part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, determined that children under 2 months should not be vaccinated unless their mothers are infected or could be infected by hepatitis B.

Some vaccine critics in the administration, including Kennedy and President Donald Trump themselves, argue — contradicting medical experts and years of medical research — that hepatitis B vaccines for young children are unnecessary, claiming that it is spread primarily or exclusively through adult behavior like sex and sharing of needles for illegal drug use.

“Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B. So I would say wait till the baby is 12 years old and formed and take hepatitis B,” Trump said at a Sept. 22 news conference.

Those claims are false, said Dr. Brian McMahon, medical and research director of the liver and hepatitis program at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

There is no credible evidence of a link between the vaccine and autism of any other health problem, McMahon said.

And sexual transmissions accounted for only a tiny percentage of Alaska’s hepatitis B cases, he said.

Aside from mother-to-infant transmissions, which occur during childbirth, hepatitis B was predominantly spread in Western Alaska through normal daily activities. That is because, unlike the HIV virus or other hepatitis viruses, the hepatitis B virus can live for seven days on surfaces in schools and homes, like tables and personal-grooming items.

“The virus can be found all over, on school luncheon tabletops, counters and homes,” McMahon said. “Kids have open cuts and scratches from bug bites or anything else, and then they shed millions of particles of the virus on environmental surfaces. And then another kid comes along with an open cut or scratch.”

Such risks are exacerbated in rural Alaska, he said, where homes can be crowded and people pursue traditional subsistence lifestyles with a lot of outdoor activities.

“They’re hunting, fishing, cutting up meat, et cetera, and mosquito bites are real prominent,” he said.

Hepatitis B virus particles, in orange, are seen in this microscopic image captured in 1981. (Dr. Erskin Palmer / U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Nationally, only 12.6% of chronic hepatitis B cases recorded from 2013 to 2018 were attributable to sexual transmission, according to a 2023 CDC study. Transmissions of all forms of hepatitis, including hepatitis B, are possible through contact sports like football, rugby and hockey, researchers have found.

Alaska’s disease and vaccination success

Before the past decades of vaccination and screening, hepatitis B was so prevalent in Western Alaska that it was classified as endemic there. It was the only part of the United States with such a classification. In some villages, 20% to 30% of the residents were infected, McMahon said.

Geography and ancient migration patterns accounted for historically high rates of the disease in Western Alaska, as well as other Indigenous regions of the Arctic.

Various strains have been carried from Asia to Alaska over millennia, according to scientists. And the remoteness of Indigenous communities meant isolation from medical services, making early diagnosis difficult in the past, allowing infections to linger and be passed down through generations, according to scientists.

In Alaska, children infected with the virus early in life had a high likelihood of winding up with chronic infections that caused serious complications later, such as liver failure. The worst cases resulted in cancer, and even death.

For McMahon, now in his 80s, treating cancer-stricken children in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, where he worked in the 1970s, was harrowing.

One of his patients was a 17-year-old high school valedictorian. A few months earlier, she started having abdominal pains, but she ignored them.

“She was really busy with school, and she’d gotten a full ride scholarship and was excited about going to the University of Alaska, representing her community,” McMahon said.

The pains turned out to be cancer, caused by a hepatitis B infection that she had not known she had. Too sick to be flown home, she died in the Bethel hospital.

“It was horrible,” McMahon said.

Another patient was an 11-year-old boy, also diagnosed after he complained of similar abdominal pain. McMahon visited him at home, where the boy was “in horrible pain” and yellow from jaundice.

“He was just crying. He said, ‘I know I’m going to die. Just help me with my pain,’” McMahon said.

“My wife was with me. She was a public health nurse. She was in tears. The community health aide practitioner was in tears. I was fighting my tears and pulling everything I could out of my bag to try to help this patient sedate. It was just something I’ll never forget. Never,” McMahon said.

He has relayed these and other experiences to the vaccine advisory committee in hopes of persuading members to keep the infant recommendations in place.

“I said, ‘Do you want to be responsible for children getting liver cancer because of this decision?’” McMahon said. “So I’m probably not very popular right now.”

Alaska was one of the first places in the world where the hepatitis B vaccine was used as soon as it became available in 1981.

Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer Victoria Balta of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prepares to ride a snowmachine between villages in rural Alaska in 2024. She and other epidemiologists traveled to villages to draw blood from participants in a long-term study of the hepatitis B vaccine. (Jonathan Steinberg / U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

The pilot vaccination project was at the insistence of Alaska Native organizations, along with the state government and the Alaska congressional delegation. Under that pilot program, according to newly published study by McMahon and other researchers from ANTHC and the CDC’s Arctic program, tribal health organizations and their partners screened 53,860 Alaska Native people for infection and gave vaccines to 43,618 Alaska Native people who tested negative, along with starting the universal newborn vaccinations.

Health officials have followed the outcomes since then, and the new study lists several achievements 40 years after universal newborn vaccination started.

Since 1995, according to the study, there have been no new symptomatic cases of hepatitis B among Alaska Natives under 20 anywhere in the state. Since 2000, no new cases of hepatitis-related liver cancer have been identified among Alaska Natives of any age in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, a region where prevalence was concentrated in the past, the study said. And follow-up surveillance has revealed that childhood hepatitis B vaccinations remain effective for at least 35 years, the study said.

Successes are also reflected in the trend of acute hepatitis, the form of infection that is short-lived and can be cleared from the body.

There have been no identified cases of acute hepatitis among Alaska Native children since 1992, according to Johns Hopkins University. The rate of acute hepatitis among Alaskans of all ages and ethnicities dropped from 12.1 cases per 100,000 people to 0.9 per 100,000 in the 2002-2015 period, according to the state Department of Health’s epidemiology section.

Alaska’s rate of chronic hepatitis B — the long-term and persistent infection that can lead to serious liver problems — remains higher than the national average. As of 2020, Alaska’s rate of chronic hepatitis B was 14.2 cases per 100,000 people, nearly triple the national rate of 5 cases per 100,000 people, according to a report by the state Department of Health’s epidemiology section.

McMahon said that is partly because of the legacy of infections in the older Native population, people whose childhood predated widespread vaccination, and prevalence among foreign-born residents who come from countries without widespread vaccination.

Debate over hepatitis B risks

This year, vaccine skeptics who are members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, however, along with people who are advising the committee, have argued that the risks of hepatitis B among children are too low to justify universal infant vaccination.

One of the officials making that argument at Thursday’s committee meeting was Dr. Cynthia Nevison, a vaccine skeptic hired as a CDC consultant. She contradicted McMahon’s description of children spreading the virus through casual contact with contaminated surfaces — a process known as “horizontal transmission.”

“There’s very little evidence that horizontal transmission has ever been a significant threat to the average American child, and the risk probably has been overstated,” she said at the meeting. Also overstated, she said, are the risks of “vertical transmission,” the viral transmission between mothers and their newborns.

The committee’s new recommendation must be approved by the CDC administrator before it becomes federal policy.

McMahon said that no matter how national policy might change, Alaska Native tribal health organizations will continue administering hepatitis B vaccines to newborns.

“I know they’re not going to stop. Even if they have to pay for it. They’re so aware of this,” he said.

His fears, he said, are for low-income families who depend on free vaccinations through state programs that might lose funding and for parents who are getting conflicting messages that may lead to conclusions that the vaccine is not necessary.

“It could be a real mess,” he said.