ATLANTA, Sept. 20 -- US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked vaccine advisory committee on Thursday recommended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) adopt new restrictions on a combination shot that protects against chickenpox as well as measles, mumps and rubella. 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. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices put off an expected vote on hepatitis B shots given to infants on the day they are born. On Friday, it was expected to decide whether to recommend that some babies can wait a month for those shots, and to also take up Covid-19 shots. The committee makes recommendations to the CDC director on how already-approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors have almost always accepted those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. Committee Chairman Martin Kulldorff said committee members aim to reassure the public and remove unnecessary risks and harms. But many doctors and public health experts say the committee is creating fear and mistrust around vaccines at a time when US vaccination rates are already falling. Kennedy, a leading antivaccine activist before becoming the nation's top health official, has made or proposed numerous changes to the nation's vaccine system, including firing the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replacing it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices. Thursday's meeting "promoted false claims and misguided information about vaccines as part of an unprecedented effort to limit access to routine childhood immunisations and sow fear and mistrust in vaccines," Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Paediatrics, said in a statement. "Instead of emerging with clear guidance about vaccines that we know protect against serious illnesses, families are left with confusion, chaos and false information." Experts are also concerned the panel's actions could narrow access to the vaccines. The group voted 8-1, with three abstentions, to keep MMRV covered for kids as young as 12 months under the Vaccines for Children programme, which pays for about half the shots given to kids in the US....