President Donald Trump signed a Trump vaccines executive order on Monday that calls for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations, including spacing some shots into separate visits. He said in the Oval Office that 1-year-olds should have their shots separated out into five separate visits.
The order directs HHS to improve vaccine research and recommends that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine be split into three different shots administered during separate visits. Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines for children are not currently available in the United States.
Last December
Last December, Trump ordered HHS to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and to consider revising United States guidance. HHS later cut the number of vaccines it recommends for every child, and that move has since been blocked in court.
States, not the federal government, set school vaccination requirements, but the order advises states with school vaccine mandates to consider updating their laws to reflect the administration’s recommendations. Trump also pushed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on autism research in a Cabinet meeting last month, asking, “How are you doing on the autism research?” Kennedy replied, “We will have an answer for you.”
MMR and autism
Public health experts have raised concerns that spacing out shots as Trump suggests can increase the risk that children catch a vaccine-preventable disease before returning for another visit. Scientific consensus and decades of studies have concluded there is no link between childhood vaccines and autism, a point that sits at odds with Trump’s recent focus on the issue.
The order leaves the next steps with HHS and with states that run school vaccine mandates, where any change would depend on how they respond to the administration’s recommendations. For families, the practical question is whether the spacing guidance stays at the level of federal advice or starts to change school requirements on the ground.
