Amid Measles Outbreak, Trump Signs Order Furthering Anti-Vaccine Movement

President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order on childhood vaccines, alarming multiple health experts and medical organizations due to the changes having no scientific basis.

The order, titled the “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” was signed by Trump in the Oval Office on Monday. It calls for revising vaccine recommendations for children, most notably by separating multiple combined vaccines, including for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR).

The MMR vaccine “should be administered in three separate single-disease shots once such products are domestically available,” the order recommends. In addition to the MMR vaccine, the order also calls for “all childhood immunizations [to] be administered at separate medical visits.”

Trump claims in his order that changes are being made “based on consultation with my advisors and review of available scientific evidence.” However, the order does not explain what that evidence is, and the current scientific understanding of vaccines suggests that combining some with others is not only safe, but highly beneficial, as it results in fewer visits to the doctor’s office for vaccines and lessens the likelihood of some vaccine doses slipping through the cracks.

Separating the MMR vaccine, for example, would result in many more needless visits to the doctor. Currently, the MMR regimen requires two doses of the combined shot to be highly effective. Separating the three vaccines within the shot would therefore require six trips to the doctor, rather than the normal two (though the executive order cuts that number in half, without explaining how or why).

In comments to reporters at the signing ceremony for the executive order, Trump said he was motivated in part by concerns about vaccines supposedly being connected to autism, despite dozens of studies across decades of research finding no causal link between the two.

“I came [into office] and I said, ‘I want to find what’s going on with autism,’” Trump said. “It’s many, many times what it used to be, years ago, and it gets progressively worse as we add more and more vaccines.”

Trump’s claim that autism gets “progressively worse” as more vaccines are administered to a person has no scientific backing.

Despite the strong possibility that changes to the vaccine schedule, including separating combined shots, could lead to fewer inoculations, Trump maintained that his actions wouldn’t have any negative consequences.

“Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing,” he said.

The falsehoods and misleading statements from the White House extended to social media shortly after the signing ceremony. Celebrating the order, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared a graphic to her X account, purporting that “European Countries” only give their infants 11 “injections,” while in the U.S., infants currently receive 72 “injections.”

“No longer!” Leavitt wrote in her post.

Ironically, the order Trump signed could expand the number of “injections” an infant will receive, if the new recommendations are followed, since it separates combined vaccines. The image Leavitt shared has been fact-checked before, with AFP noting that it “misleads by implying a child will receive 72 injections in infancy,” when, in reality, those shots are administered from ages 0 to 18.

“The number of shots varies, but according to the Yale School of Public Health, the actual number is generally lower as combination and oral vaccines are administered,” that fact check noted.

Additionally, the graphic compares two different standards. While calling the shots administered “injections,” on the European side of the graphic, the number cited on that side counts the total shots recommended within an unnamed country. Conversely, on the U.S. side of the graphic, it counts each vaccination — even those combined with others — as separate shots (e.g., the MMR vaccine would be counted as six separate “injections”). Indeed, using the same metrics and flawed definitions, several European countries also advise the administration of dozens of “injections,” too, much like in the U.S.

The day after issuing his order, Trump continued peddling falsehoods about the MMR vaccine.

“If you give them separately — the M, the M, and the R, it’s fine. When you put them together, they’re sort of like a nuclear weapon, according to some,” Trump claimed in an interview on Tuesday, citing no scientific evidence. “So why wouldn’t you give them separately? What’s hurt by giving them separately?”

The demand by Trump to separate the MMR vaccine and others like it comes at a time when the U.S. is already experiencing a nationwide measles outbreak. If the order is followed, it becomes more likely that the virus will spread even further than it already has under his administration’s watch.

From the start of the year to last week, there have been 2,465 measles cases identified across the country. That number already exceeds the 2,286 cases seen in the year 2025, and is many times higher than the total seen in 2024, when only 285 cases occurred.

Despite these new numbers threatening the country’s status as having essentially “eliminated” the virus over the past two decades, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has vastly downplayed the seriousness of the measles outbreak. Over the past year and a half, he has falsely claimed outbreaks like these are typical, and has peddled the dangerous belief that “natural” infection is more effective than the MMR vaccine, disregarding the possibility of lifelong complications or death from virus. Kennedy has also promoted dubious “remedies” for the virus, which have resulted in other health problems for children whose parents have followed his guidance.

Several experts and medical organizations have blasted the administration’s decision to alter the childhood vaccination schedule.

“Altering a proven vaccination schedule without credible evidence risks weakening public confidence and putting children’s health at risk,” said Willie Underwood III, president of the American Medical Association.

“There’s no science behind these recommendations. It’s all about ideology,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, speaking to The New York Times.

Jan Carney, president of the American College of Physicians, similarly faulted the White House for issuing unscientific guidelines, stating:

This executive order is part of a troubling pattern by the administration to attempt to unilaterally change vaccine guidance, particularly for children, rather than relying on the transparent, scientific review that has guided the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule for decades.

“As measles cases reach a 35-year high in the U.S. and with cold and flu season quickly approaching, today’s executive order on vaccines is not only disheartening but dangerous,” said Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatricians. “Instead of ensuring every family can access life-saving vaccines for measles, influenza, RSV and more, federal leaders are once again spreading misleading claims.”

Racine added:

There is no new evidence to justify significant changes to childhood immunization guidance. … The only purpose of this announcement is to sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines. Delaying or skipping shots is risky, especially as measles continues to spread and children go back to school.