Flanked by top health officials including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump unveiled a federal policy that looked skeptically at childhood vaccination.
The order recommends all children get 11 vaccines instead of the 18 previously recommended by the federal government — and would spread out the doses over a longer time.
The order also calls for the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, to be broken up into three vaccinations. It’s not currently available in that format in the U.S., and health experts said doing so would expose children to dangerous infectious diseases for much longer.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump made a range of misleading and incorrect claims about vaccines. He repeatedly linked them to rising rates of autism in the U.S., despite decades of research showing there is no link between the two.
"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.
Trump did not cite evidence to substantiate that claim.
Trump’s chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, last December raised red flags for competitive House districts about pushing for vaccine changes. Eliminating longstanding recommendations for certain vaccines was “politically risky,” he found.
Asked about the political risks, White House officials told reporters Monday only that the order was based on “gold standard science” and the vaccine move was a “longstanding presidential priority.”
The federal government does not mandate vaccines — that power belongs to states — but the vaccine schedule helps influence state policies and guides which vaccines are covered by insurance.
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