President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing federal health officials to overhaul the US childhood vaccine schedule, calling for the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot to be split into three separate injections and for the number of routinely recommended childhood immunizations to be cut from 18 to 11 diseases.
According to Scientific American, which reviewed a draft of the order, it directs Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to "present plans" for breaking up the MMR vaccine into individual shots and, "to the maximum extent feasible," have all childhood immunizations administered at separate medical visits rather than combined. The order sorts vaccines into three tiers: those recommended for all children, those for high-risk groups, and those left to "shared clinical decision-making" between parents and doctors. It remains unclear whether the order will actually alter the schedule set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which operates independently of the White House.
No Separate MMR Shots Currently Exist
There is a significant practical hurdle: manufacturers do not currently produce standalone measles, mumps or rubella vaccines for the US market, meaning any split product would require new clinical trials and regulatory approval before it could reach patients, according to ABC News. Trump also renewed his long-running, evidence-free claim linking vaccines to autism, saying at the signing that "it is essential to our research efforts that we have the very best vaccine recommendations in the entire world, so we're reducing them." He suggested the combined shot could be "quite lethal" separately from being "not at all lethal but just very effective" — a claim contradicted by decades of research showing the MMR vaccine is both safe and effective.
ABC News reported that before the measles vaccine was introduced, 400 to 500 Americans died from the disease annually and roughly 48,000 were hospitalized; measles deaths in the US are now close to zero. Medical experts say rising autism diagnoses reflect improved screening, not immunization.
Doctors Push Back
The order drew swift criticism from physicians, including some in Trump's own party. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician, wrote that "vaccines DO NOT cause autism." Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Vaccine Integrity Project, urged parents to keep following guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, saying the order "does not change the underlying scientific evidence supporting childhood immunization." Dr. Jan K. Carney of the American College of Physicians called it "part of a troubling pattern" of unilaterally rewriting vaccine guidance, and University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor David Mandell warned splitting shots across more visits would place a "tremendous burden" on families.
My fervent hope is that pediatricians and families choose to follow the AAP's vaccination schedule rather than the decidedly unscientific and dangerous one that this executive order puts forward.
David Mandell, professor of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania
Monday's order is the administration's second major push this year to narrow the childhood vaccine schedule. In January, the CDC moved to trim its recommended list to 11 diseases from 17, only for a federal judge to block that action in March. Federal agencies now have 90 days to report back on implementation plans, meaning no immediate changes to vaccine access or insurance coverage are expected in the near term — but the fight over who controls US vaccine policy is clearly not over.
