By Jacob Bogage and Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday calling for fewer childhood vaccinations by limiting the inoculation schedule to 11 immunizations, which he said would give U.S. children “gold-standard” protection and align the country with peer nations that recommend fewer shots.
The order advances a long-standing goal of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist who has promoted a link between vaccines and autism that scientists have repeatedly debunked.
Public health experts say the U.S. schedule reflects decades of evidence and the specific health needs of Americans, and that fewer recommended shots will leave more children exposed to preventable diseases.
The order also recommended splitting the childhood measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three shots and delivering the shots at separate medical visits.
Kennedy had in January cut the U.S. immunization schedule to remove shots against six out of 17 diseases, a move halted by a federal court ruling. The Trump order says that the federal government will now only support the remaining 11 shots.
HEALTH EXPERTS REJECT CHANGES
The American Academy of Pediatrics and vaccine maker Merck criticized the order.
“We are evaluating our next steps,” said Richard Hughes IV, lead counsel for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which sued earlier this year over Kennedy’s changes to the childhood immunization schedule.
Merck said there is no published scientific evidence showing any benefit to splitting the combination MMR shot into three, and that using the individual components increases the number of injections and can lead to delayed or missed immunizations.
“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 during a White House signing ceremony.
Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said breaking up combination vaccines and downgrading recommendations would deepen disparities and worsen vaccine coverage, warning that the resulting recommendations in practice cannot be implemented.
Kennedy has previously led efforts to drop universal recommendations for hepatitis B shots for children and reduce the list of recommended vaccines, citing links to autism that scientists have repeatedly debunked.
The executive order says it reaffirms Kennedy’s overhaul despite the ongoing litigation.
REPUBLICAN SENATOR CONDEMNS MOVE
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who chairs the Senate health committee, condemned the order.
“I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes,” Cassidy said, adding that breaking up vaccines “will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots.”
Cassidy, however, has shepherded Trump’s slate of health agency leaders through confirmation despite his own warnings about vaccine skepticism. He cast a decisive vote to confirm Kennedy in 2025. Cassidy lost his Republican primary in May to a Trump-endorsed challenger and will leave office in January.
ADMINISTRATION FIGURES CHALLENGED
Trump, Kennedy and other White House officials said the order means U.S. children would receive far fewer than the 72 injections recommended under the previous schedule.
Vaccine experts say that figure is inflated, because it counts combination shots such as MMR as multiple injections even though they are given in one shot, and assumes annual flu and COVID-19 doses.
Dr. Elizabeth Mack, a pediatric critical care physician in Charleston, South Carolina, said breaking up the shots would increase the number of injections children receive, because they are currently given in combination.
She also said there were no licensed single-antigen measles, mumps or rubella vaccines available in the United States, making the recommendation unfeasible as written.
“We don’t have a system that supports this,” Mack said, questioning whether parents would be asked to make more visits and whether those visits would be reimbursed.
(Reporting by Jacob Bogage and Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Michael Erman, Julie Steenhuysen, Ismail Shakil and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by David Ljunggren, Cynthia Osterman and Stephen Coates)
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