Trump order calls for fewer childhood vaccines
The Hill · C · trust 71/100
Comments: by Nathaniel Weixel - 08/10/26 4:11 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Nathaniel Weixel - 08/10/26 4:11 PM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING An executive order signed by President Trump Monday would upend the childhood vaccine schedule by recommending splitting up the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot across three separate visits.
The order builds on other efforts by Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reshape and whittle down the number of childhood vaccines — shoving controversial vaccination policy back into the mainstream just a few months ahead of the midterm elections.
“Effective immediately, my administration is recognizing gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations for only 11 core vaccinations against the most serious and dangerous diseases, along with the MMR, which hopefully will be split up,” Trump said in the Oval Office.
With a heavy emphasis on autism, the president also directed the HHS to improve vaccine safety research.
Trump suggested multiple times that rising rates of childhood shots have led to an increase in autism diagnoses.
“Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today. In those times, people were much healthy, and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist” Trump said. “So there’s a reason for such epidemic rates of autism, and we’re going to bring it back to where it was.
Medical experts have decried the idea and said splitting up the MMR vaccine could leave children vulnerable to infectious diseases for longer. Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines for children are not currently available in the U.S.
“Parents can still choose to give their children all of the vaccinations if they wish. It’s up to the parents,” Trump added. “However, this updated recommendation finally aligns the United States nations around the world. More importantly, aligns us with common sense and knowledge.”
The MMR shot is recommended for children at 12 to 15 months and 4 to 6 years. The combined version has been available since 1971, in part to reduce the number of injections that children receive.
But Trump insisted children are being harmed by getting injected with more vaccines than their bodies can handle.
“Very simply: Large amounts of vaccine, large amounts of — like vats — of vaccine are currently pumped into your child’s body,” Trump said.
According to Trump, spacing out vaccines is the right move.
“Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing,” Trump told reporters. He also said he broke up his own children’s vaccinations over several visits, with no ill effects.
Trump’s order largely mimics an attempt to limit the number of childhood vaccines made by the HHS in January, which was blocked by a judge in March.
Heidi Overton, a White House public health policy adviser, said the executive order was in response to that decision.
“We are going to be working directly with states so that we’re not reliant on the court case to resolve. We are doing it right away so that parents get the benefit from state laws changing,” Overton said.
The federal government does not mandate vaccines; that power belongs to states, but the vaccine schedule helps influence state policies and guide which vaccines are covered by insurance.
Many states have already said they have lost faith in the Trump administration and are no longer following recommendations from the federal government.
Trump acknowledged it may be hard for some parents to take a child to the doctor multiple times, but he insisted it would be worth it.
“It’s inconvenient, it’s five stops, but it’s something that I think will have a huge impact on autism,” he told reporters after signing the order.
Without evidence, Trump also claimed that the MMR vaccine could be “quite lethal” in its combined form, despite decades of evidence showing otherwise. Trump said the three vaccines are very effective when separate.
The “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” divides vaccines into three distinct categories: those recommended for all children, children at high risk of infection, or based on “shared clinical decision-making” in consultation with a clinician.
All children are recommended to receive vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Hib, pneumococcal disease, HPV and varicella, or chicken pox — though the shots are meant to be spread out over many more visits than some are currently.
In a change, only high-risk children are recommended to receive respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) monoclonal antibodies, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal B, meningococcal ACWY and dengue vaccines.
Vaccines for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID-19 would be based on shared clinical decision-making.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician who voted to confirm Kennedy last year despite his uneasiness over Kennedy’s history as an anti-vaccine activist, immediately criticized the order.
“This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism,” Cassidy wrote on X. “Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.”
The announcement also presents an immediate challenge to Erica Schwartz, the newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who has yet to be sworn in.
During her confirmation hearing, Cassidy pressed Schwartz about whether she would stand up to Kennedy on vaccines if he wanted to implement a…
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