Trump signs vaccine order citing unproven autism link, drawing fierce medical pushback

On a Monday morning in the Oval Office, President Trump signed an executive order that would reshape how American children receive vaccines. The order recommends reducing the number of vaccines given to children and restructuring the schedule so that some shots are administered separately over an extended period rather than together. Vaccines against RSV and hepatitis A and B would be reserved for children deemed at higher risk. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine—currently administered as a single shot—would ideally be given as three separate injections, though those individual shots do not currently exist on the American market.

During his remarks, Trump repeatedly invoked autism as a reason for the changes, despite the executive order itself containing no mention of the condition. "Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," he said. "In those times, people were much healthier and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist." He offered no evidence for the claim. The president suggested that by spacing out vaccinations and reducing their number, the administration could address what he characterized as epidemic rates of autism. "We're reducing them, we're changing it to visits over the period of a year, a year and a half, so they get 20% of what they would have gotten in one big shot," he explained.

The medical establishment responded swiftly and sharply. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the order "disheartening" and "dangerous," noting that dozens of studies involving millions of people have found no link between vaccines and autism. Dr. Andrew Racine, the group's president, warned that the order could "sow confusion so that more people doubt the importance of vaccines." A 2019 Danish study tracking 657,461 children found that the autism rate in vaccinated children was actually slightly lower than in unvaccinated children. A 2015 American study of nearly 100,000 children, including almost 2,000 with an older sibling diagnosed with autism, found no increased risk from the MMR vaccine.

The timing of the order coincides with measles cases reaching their highest levels in 35 years. Health officials have warned that the United States risks losing its measles elimination status. Dr. Jon LaPook, CBS News chief medical correspondent, cautioned that the president's assertion that "nothing bad can happen" from the administration's research is incorrect. He pointed to hepatitis B as an example: while many people believe babies can only contract the virus from their mothers, caregivers can transmit it through bodily fluids. More than 800,000 Americans carry chronic hepatitis B, and roughly half do not know it. When an infant contracts hepatitis B, about 90 percent of the time the infection becomes chronic, potentially causing severe long-term damage.

History offers a cautionary example. In the 1990s, Japan split its MMR vaccine into separate shots. Mumps vaccination rates there plummeted to about one-third of children, and doctors documented hundreds of cases of hearing loss as a result. Dr. Céline Gounder, another CBS medical correspondent, cited this precedent when discussing the current proposal. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, himself a physician, posted on social media that the executive order was "wrong" and that breaking up vaccines would actually require children to receive more shots, not fewer, to achieve the same protection.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the federal government's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health would launch a major initiative to examine the causes of autism. "We will examine every biologically plausible hypothesis and leave no legitimate, scientific question unexplored," Kennedy said. The National Institutes of Health director, asked about the order, stated that he trusts the science on childhood vaccines and has vaccinated his own children, while emphasizing the importance of vaccination for standard childhood diseases.

The order directs the Health and Human Services Department to reassess vaccine sequencing and timing within 90 days. It cites alignment with "best practices" from peer nations and protection of religious liberty and parental authority. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics has previously noted that vaccination guidance varies across countries because they face different disease threats, have different population demographics and healthcare systems, and have varying vaccine availability. The order comes as a federal judge ruled in March that a similar CDC push violated legally required processes, and litigation has delayed implementation of previous vaccine schedule changes.

States, not the federal government, ultimately set policies for school immunization schedules, meaning the order's practical effect will depend on state-level action. Dr. Richard Besser, a pediatrician and former acting CDC director, said the order represents "the injection of politics into something that should be a very personal conversation between a parent and their child's doctor." He characterized Trump's remarks as injecting "fear" and "concern where there shouldn't be." As the school year approaches in many states and measles cases continue to rise, the full consequences of the order remain uncertain.